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JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA 



LIFE AND LANDSCAPES FROM EGYPT 

TO THE NEGRO KINGDOMS OF 

THE WHITE NILE. 



yL 



BAYARD TAYLOR 



Wtjj a %ap ana Sllastrations bi| the Sntijar. 




TENTH EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
G. P. PUTNAM & CO., 321 BROADWAY 




183; 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
G. P. PUTNAM & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New York. 






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W s h i c a t ? in to 

A. B. 

Of SAIE-COBURG-OOTHA 

BY 

HIS FELLOW-TRAVELLER IN EGYPT. 

B. T. 



2e> (iLW^ 









. 



PREFACE. 



There is an old Italian proverb, which says a man 
has lived to no purpose, unless he has either built a 
house, begotten a son, or written a book. As I have 
already complied more than once with the latter of 
these requisitions, I must seek to justify the present 
repetition thereof, on other grounds. My reasons for 
offering this volume to the public are, simply, that 
there is room for it. It is the record of a journey which 
led me, for the most part, over fresh fields, by paths 
which comparatively few had trodden before me. Al- 
though I cannot hope to add much to the general 
stock of information concerning Central Africa, I may 
serve, at least, as an additional witness, to confirm or 
illustrate the evidence of others. Hence, the prepara- 
tion of this work has appeared to me rather in the light 



of a duty than a diversion, and I have endeavored to 
impart as much instruction as amusement to the 
reader. While seeking to give correct pictures of the 
rich, adventurous life into which I was thrown, I have 
resisted the temptation to yield myself up to its more 
subtle and poetic aspects. My aim has been to furnish 
a faithful narrative of my own experience, believing 
that none of those embellishments which the imagina- 
tion so readily furnishes, can equal the charm of the 
unadorned truth. 

There are a few words of further explanation which 
I wish to say. The journey was undertaken solely 
for the purpose of restoring a frame exhausted by 
severe mental labor. A previous experience of a tropi- 
cal climate convinced me that I should best accomplish 
my object by a visit to Egypt, and as I had a whole 
winter before me, I determined to penetrate as far into 
the interior of Africa as the time would allow, attracted 
less by the historical and geographical interest of those 
regions than by the desire to participate in their free, 
vigorous, semi-barbaric life. If it had been my inten- 
tion, as some of my friends supposed, to search, for the 
undiscovered sources of the White Nile, I should not 
have turned back, until the aim was accomplished or all 
means had failed. 

I am aware that, by including in this work my 
journey through Egypt, I have gone over much ground 



which is already familiar. Egypt, however, was the 
vestibule through which I passed to Ethiopia and the 
kingdoms beyond, and I have not been able to omit my 
impressions of that country without detracting from 
the completeness of the narrative. This book is the 
record of a single journey, which, both in its character 
and in the circumstances that suggested and accompa- 
nied it, occupies a separate place in my memory. Its 
performance was one uninterrupted enjoyment, for, 
whatever the privations to which it exposed me, they 
were neutralized by the physical delight of restored 
health and by a happy confidence in the successful 
issue of the journey, which never forsook me. It is 
therefore but just to say, that the pictures I have 
drawn may seem over-bright to others who may here- 
after follow me ; and I should warn all such that they 
must expect to encounter many troubles and annoy- 
ances. 

Although I have described somewhat minutely the 
antiquities of Nubia and Ethiopia which I visited, and 
have not been insensible to the interest which every 
traveller in Egypt must feel in the remains of her 
ancient art, I have aimed at giving representations of 
the living races which inhabit those countries rather 
than the old ones which have passed away. I have 
taken it for granted that the reader will feel more 
interested — as I was — in a live Arab, than a dead 



4 PREFACE. 

Pharaoh. I am indebted wholly to the works of Cham- 
pollion, Wilkinson and Lepsius for whatever allusions I 
have made to the age and character of the Egyptian 
ruins. B. T. 

New York, July, 1854. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

Arrival at Alexandria— The Landing — My First Oriental Bath — The City— Prepara- 
tions for Departure, 13 

CHAPTER IL 

Departure — The Kangia — Tho Egyptian Climate— The Mahmoudieh Canal — Entrance 
into the Nile — Pleasures of the Journey — Studying Arabic — Sight of the Pyramids 
— The Barrage — Approach to Cairo, 21 

CHAPTER III. 

Entrance— The Ezbekiyeh— Saracenic Houses— Donkeys— Tho Bazaars— The Streets 
— Processions — View from the Citadel — Mosque of Mohammed AH — The Road to 
Suez— The Island of Ehoda, 84 

CHAPTER IV. 

Necessity of Leaving Immediately — Engaging a Boat — The Dragomen — Achmet e) 
Saidi — Funds — Information — Procuring an Outfit — Preparing for the Desert — The 
Lucky Day — Exertions to Leave — Off, ........ 46 

CHAPTER V. 

Howling Dervishes — A Chicken Factory — Hide to the Pyramids — Quarrel with the 
Arabs — The Ascent — View from the Summit — Backsheesh — Effect of Pyramid- 
climbing— The Sphinx — Playing tho Cadi — "We obtain Justice — Visit to Sakkara 
and the Mummy Pits — The Exhumation of Memphis — Interview with M. Marietta 
-Account of his Discoveries— Statue of Remesos II.— Return to the Nile, . 55 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Leaving the Pyramids— A Calm and a Breeze— A Coptic Visit — Minyeh — The Grottoes 
of Beni-Hassan — Doum Palms and Crocodiles — Djebel Aboufayda — Entrance into 
Upper Egypt — Diversions of the Boatmen — Siont— Its Tombs— A Landscape— A 
Bath 71 

CHAPTER VII. 

Independence of Nile Life — The Dahabiyeh — Our Servants — Our Besidenco — Our Man- 
ner of Living — The Climate — The Natives — Costume — Our Sunset Bepose — My 
j Friend — A Sensuous Life Defended, 85 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Calm — Mountains and Tombs — A Night Adventure in Ekhmin — Character of the 
Boatmen — Fair Wind — Pilgrims — Egyptian Agriculture— Sugar and Cotton — Grain 
— Sheep — Arrival at Kenneh — A Landscape— The Temple of Dendera— 'First Im- 
pressions of Egyptian Ai ' -Portrait of Cleopatra — A Happy Meeting — "We approach 
Thebes, 98 

CHAPTER IX. 

Arrival at Thebes — Ground-Plan of the Remains — We Cross to the Western Bank — 
Guides — The Temple of Goorneh — Valley of the Kings' Tombs — Belzoni's Tomb — 
The Eaces of Men — Vandalism of Antiquarians— Bruce's Tomb — Memnon — The 
Grandfather of Sesostris— The Head of Amunoph— The Colossi of the Plain— 
Memnonian Music — The Statue of Eemeses — The Memnonium — Beauty of Egyp- 
tian Art — More Scrambles among the Tombs — The Bats of the Assasseef— Medee- 
net Abou — Sculptured Histories — The Great Court of the Temple — We return to 
Luxor, 113 

CHAPTER X. 

The Dancing Girls of Egypt— A Night Scene in Luxor— The Orange-Blossom and the 
Apple-Blossom — The Beautiful Bemba — The Dance — Performance of the Apple- 
Blossom — The Temple of Luxor — A Mohammedan School — Gallop to Karnak — 
View of the Buins — The Great Hall of Pillars — Bedouin Diversions — A Night 
Bide— Karnak under the Full Moon— Farewell to Thebes, .... 131 

CHAPTER XL 

The Temple of Hermontis — Esneh and its Temple — The Governor — El Kab by Torch- 
light — The Temple of Edfou — The Quarries of Djebel Silsileh — Ombos— Approach 
to Nubia— Change in the Scenery and Inhabitants — A Mirage— Arrival at As- 
souan, 145 

CHAPTER XII. 

An Official Visit— Achmetfs Dexterity— The Island of Elephantine— Nubian Children — 
Trip to Pbito— Linant Bey--The Island of Philse— Sculptures— The Negro Kace — 



CONTENTS. 7 

Breakfast in a Ptolemaic Temple -The Island of Biggeh— Backsheesh— The Cataract 
— The Granite Quarries of Assouan— The Travellers separate, ... 152 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Solitary Travel — Scenery of the Nubian Nile — Agriculture — The Inhabitants — Arrival 
at Korosko — The Governor — The Tent Pitched— Shekh Abou-Mohammed — Bur- 
gaining for Camels — A Drove of Giraffes — Visits — Preparations for the Desert — M y 
Last Evening on the Nile, 102 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Curve of the Nile — Routes across the Desert — Our Caravan starts — Riding on a 
Dromedary— The Guide and Camel-drivers — Hair-dressing — El Biban— Scenery — 
Dead Camels — An Unexpected Visit — The Guide makes my Grave — The River 
without Water— Characteristics of the Mirage — Desert Life — The Sun— The Desert 
Air — Infernal Scenery — The Wells of Murr-hat— Christmas — Mountain Chains- 
Meeting Caravans — Plains of Gravel — The Story of Joseph — Djebel Mokrat — The 
Last Day in the Desert — We see the Nile again, 1T1 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Draught of Water — Abou-Hammed — The Island of Mokrat — Ethiopian Scenery — 
The People — An Ababdeh Apollo — Encampment on the Nile — Tomb of an English- 
man — Eesa's Wedding— A White Arab — The Last Day of the Year — Abou-Hashym 
— Incidents — Loss of my Thermometer— The Valley of Wild Asses — The Eleventh 
Cataract — Approach to Berber— Vultures — Eyoub Outwitted — We reach El Mek- 
heyref— The Caravan Broken up, 193 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Wedding — My Reception by the Military Governor — Achmet — The Bridegroom — A 
Guard — I am an American Bey — Kerf — The Bey's Visit — The Civil Governor — 
About the Navy — The Priest's Visit — Riding in State — The Dongolese Stallion — A 
Merchant's House -The Town — Dinner at the Governor's — The Pains of Royalty — 
A Salute to the American Flag — Departure, 206 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Fortunate Travel — The America — Ethiopian Scenery — The Atbara River — Darner — A 
Melon Patch — Agriculture — The Inhabitants — Change of Scenery — The First Hip- 
popotamus — Crocodiles — Effect of My Map — The Eais and Sailors — Arabs in Ethio- 
pia—Ornamental Scars— Beshir— The Slave Bakhita— We Approach Meroe, 219 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Arrival at Bedjerowiyeh— The Ruins of Meroe— Walk Across the Plain— The Pyra- 
mids — Character of their Masonry — The Tower and Vault — Finding of the Trea- 
sure — The Second Group — More Ruins -Site of the City — Number of the Pyramids 
— The Antiquity of Meroe — Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization— The Caucasian 
Race— Reflections, 229 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



The Landscapes of Ethiopia — My Evenings beside the Nile — Experiences of the Ara- 
bian Nights— The Story of tho Sultana Zobeide ai d the "Wood-cutter— Cha/acter 
of the Arabian Tales— Religion 238 



CHAPTER XX. 

Arrival at Shendy — Appearance of the Town— Shendy in Former Days — "We Touch a* 
El Metemma — The Nile beyond Shendy — Flesh Diet vs. Vegetables — We Escape 
Shipwreck — A "Walk on Shore— Tho Rapids of Derreira — Djebel Gerri— The 
Twelfth Cataract — Night in the Mountain Gorge — Crocodiles — A Drink of Maree3a 
— My Birth-Day — Fair Wind — Approach to Khartoum — The Junction of the Two 
Niles— Appearance of the City — We Drop Anchor, 258 



CHAPTER XXI. 

The American Flag — ARoncontre— Search for a House— The Austrian Consular Agent 
— Description of his Residence— The Garden— The Menagerie— Barbaric Pomp 
and State — Picturesque Character of the Society of Khartoum — Foundation and 
Growth of the City — Its Appearance— The Population— Unhealthiness of the Cli- 
mate — Assembly of Ethiopian Chieftains— Visit of Two Shekhs — Dinner and Fire- 
works. :..'.' 270 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Visit to the Catholie Mission — Dr. Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar— Moussa Bey- 
Visit to Lattif Pasha— Reception — The Pasha's Palace— Lions — We Dine with the 
Pasha — Ceremonies upon the Occasion — Music — The Guests — The Franks in Khar- 
toum — Dr. Peney — Visit to the Sultana Nasra — An Ethiopian Dinner — Character 
of tho Sultana, 280 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Recent Explorations of Soudan— Limit of the Tropical Rains — The Conquest of Ethio- 
pia—Countries Tributary to Egypt— The District of Takka — Expedition of Moussa 
Bey — Tho Atbara River — The Abyssinian Frontier — Christian Ruins of Abou- 
Harass — The Kingdom of Sennaar — Kordofau — Dar-Fiir — The Princess of Dar- 
Fiu- in Khartoum— Her Visit to Dr. Reitz— The Unknown Countries of Central 
Africa, .;...... 297 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Excursions around Khartoum — A Race into the Desert — Euphorbia Forest — The 
Banks of tho Blue Nile— A Saint's Grave— The Confluence of the Two Niles— Mag- 
nitude of the Nile— Comparative Size of the Rivers— Their Names— Desire to pene- 
trate further into Africa — Attractions of the "White Nile — Engage the Boat John 
Ledyard — Former Restrictions against exploring the River — Visit to the Pasha — 
Dospotic Hospitality — Achmet's Misgivings — We set sail, .... S09 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Departure from Khartoum — We enter the "White Nile — Mirage and Landscape— The 
Consul returns — Progress — Loss of the Flag- Scenery of the Shores — Territory of 
the Hassaniyebs — Curious Conjugal Custom — Multitudes of Water Fowls — Increas- 
ed Richness of Vegetation — Apes — Sunset on the White Nile — We reach the King- 
dom of tho Shillook Negroes, 820 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Morning — Magnificence of the Island Scenery — Birds and Hippopotami — Flight of the 
Natives — The Island of Aba — Signs of Population— A Band of Warriors — Tho Shekh 
and the Sultan— A Treaty of Peace — The Robe of Honor — Suspicions— We walk to 
the Village — Appearance of the Shillooks — The Village — The Sultan gives Audience 
— Women and Children — Ornaments of the Natives — My Watch — A Jar of Honey — 
Suspicion and Alarm — The Shillook and the Sultan's Black Wife — Character of the 
Shillooks — The Land of the Lotus — Population of the Shillook Kingdom — The Turn 
ing Point — A Viow from the Mast-IIesd, 829 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Explorations of the White Nile — Dr. Knoblecher's Voyage in 1849-50 — The Lands 
of the Shillooks and Dinkas— Intercourse with the Natives — Wild Elephants and 
Giraffes— The Sobat River— The Country of Marshes— The Gazelle Lake— The 
Nuehrs — Interview with the Chief of the Kyks — The Zhir Country — Land of the 
Baris — Tho Rapids Surmounted — Arrival at Logwek, in Lat. 4° 10' North -Panora- 
ma from Mt. Logwek — Sonrees of tho White Nile— Character of tho Bari Nation — 
Return of the Expedition — Fascination of the Nile, 845 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

We leave the Islands of the Shillooks — Tropical Jungles — A Whim and its Consequen- 
ces—Lairs of Wild Beasts — Arrival among the Ilassaniyehs — A Village — The Wo- 
man and the Sultan — A Dance of Salutation — My Arab Sailor — A Swarthy Cleopa- 
tra — Salutation of the Saint — Miraculous Fishing — Night View of a Hassaniyeh Vil- 
lage — Wad Shellayeb — A Shekh*s Residence — An Ebony Cherub — The Cook At- 
tempts Suicide — Evening Landscape — The Natives and their Cattle — A Boyish 
Governor — We reach Khartoum at Midnight, .;.... 856 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Tin- Departure of Abd-el Kader Bey — An Illuminated Picture — The Breakfast on the 
I -land — Horsemanship— The Pasha's Stories — Departure of Lattif Effendi's Expedi- 
tion — A Night on the Sand — Abou-Sin, and his Shnkoree Warriors — Change in the 
Climate — Intense Heat and its Effects — Preparations for Returning— A Money 
Transaction — Farewell Visits — A Dinner with Royal Guests — Jolly King Dyaab — 
A Shillook Danoe — Reconciliation — Taking Leave of my Pets, . . . 8T2 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The Commerce of Soudan — Avenues of Trade — The Merchants — Character of the Im 
ports — Speculation — The Gum Trade of Kordofan — The Ivory Trade — Abutes of the 
Government — The Traffic in Slaves — Prices of Slaves — Their Treatment, . °S4 

CHAPTER XXX T. 

Farewell Breakfast — Departure from Khartoum — Parting with Dr. Reitz — A '.'relic- 
tion and its Fulfilment — Dreary Appearance of the Country — Lions— Buryins- 
Grounds — The Natives — My Kababish Guide, Mohammed — Character of the Arab* 
— Habits of Deception — My Dromedary — Mutton and Mareesa — A Soudan Ditty — 
The Rowyan — Akaba Gerri — Heat and Scenery — An Altercation with the Guide — 
A Mishap— A Landscape — Tedious Approach to EI Metcmma-— Appearance of rlie 
Town— Preparations for the Desert— Meeting Old Acquaintances, . . :;!>'2 

CHAPTER XXXI!. 

Entering the Desert— Character of the Scenery — Wells— Fear of the Arabs — The La- 
loom Tree — Effect of the Hot Wind — Mohammed overtakes us — Arab Endurance — 
An unpleasant Bedfellow — Comedy of the Crows — Gazelles — Wo encounter a Sand- 
storm—The Mountain of Thirst— The . Wells of Djeekdud— A Mountain Pass- 
Desert Intoxication— Scenery of the Tahle-'and — Bir Kiiannik — The Kababish 
Arabs— Gazelles again — Ruins of an Ancient Ooptic Monastery— Distant View of the 
Nile Valley— DjebelBerkel— We come into P..rt 406 

CHAPTER XXXIIE. 

Our whereabouts— Shekh Mohammed Abd c'-Djebal — My residence at Abdom — Cross- 
ing the River — A Superb Landscape — The Town of Merawe — Eido to Djebel Berkel 
— The Temples of Napata — Ascent of the Mountain — Ethiopian Panorama — Lost 
and Found — The Pyramids— The Governor of Merawe — A Scene in the Divan — 
The Shekh and I — The Governor Dines with me — Ruins of the City of Napata — 
A Talk about Religions— Engaging Camels for Wadi-Halfa— The Shekh's Parting 
Blessing, 421 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Appearance of the Country — Korti — The Town of Ambukol — The Caravan reorgan- 
ized — A Fiery Eide — We reach Edabbe — An Illuminated Landscape — A Torment 
— Nubian Agriculture — Old Dongola — The Palace-Mosque of the Nubian Kings — A 
Panorama of Desolation — The Old City — Nubian Gratitude — Another Sand-Storm 
— A Dreary Journey — The Approach to Handak — A House of Doubtful Character — 
The Inmates — Journey to El Ordeo (New Dongola) — Khoorshid Bey — Appearance 
of the Town, 43S 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

We start for Wadi-Halfa— The Plague of Black Gnats— Mohammed's Coffin— The 
Ts'and of Argo--' Market-Day— Scenery of the Nile— Entering Dar El-Mahass — 



CONTENTS. 1 1 



Ruined Fortresses — The Camel-Men— A Rocky Chaos— Fakir Bender— The Akaba 
ofMahass — Camp in the Wilderness — The Charm of Desolation — The Nile again — 
Pilgrini3 from Dar-Fur— The Straggle of the Nile— An Arcadian Landscape — The 
Temple of Soleb— Dar Sukkot— The Land of Pates— The Island of Sai— A Sea of 
Sand— Camp by the River — A Hyena Barbecue, 4d7 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

The Batn El-Hadjar, or Belly of Stone— Ancient Granite Quarries— The Village of 
Dal — A Ruined Fortress — A Wilderness of Stones— The Hot Springs of Ukme — A 
Windy Night — A Dreary Day in the Desert— The Shekh's Camel Fails— Descent to 
Samneh — The Temple and Cataract — Meersheh— The Sale of Abou-Sin— We 
Emerge from the Belly of Stone — \ Kababish Caravan— The Rock of Abcu-Seer — 
View of the Second Cataract — We reach Wadi- Haifa — Selling my Dromedaries — 
Farewell to Abou-Sin — Thanksgiving on the Ferry-boat— Parting with the Camel- 
men, 471 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Wadi Haifa — A Boat for Assouan — We Embark on the Nile Again — An Egyptian 
Dream— The Temples of Abou-Simbel— The Smaller Temple— The Colossi of 
Remeses II.— Vulgarity of Travellers — Entering the Great Temple — My Impres- 
sions — Character of Abou-Simbel — The Smaller Chambers — The Races of Men — 
Remeses and the Captive Kings — Departure, 486 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

I Lose my Sunshine, and Regain it — Nubian Scenery — Derr — The Temple of Amada 
— Mysterious Rappings — Familiar Scenes — Halt at Korosko — Escape from Ship- 
wreck — The Temple of Sebooa — Chasing other Boats — Temple of Djerf Hossayn — 
A Backsheesh Experiment — Kalabshee — Temple of Dabod — We reach the Egyp- 
tian Frontior, 495 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Assouan — A Boat for Cairo — English Tourists — A Head-wind— Ophthalmia — Esneh — 
A Mummied Princess — Ali Effendi's Stories — A Donkey Afrite — Arrival at Luxor 
— The Egyptian Autumn — A Day at Thebes— Songs of the Sailors — Ali leaves 
mo — Ride to Dendera — nead-winds again — Visit to Tahtah — The House of Rufaa 
Bey, 50G 

CHAPTER XL. 

Siout in Harvest-timo— A kind Englishwoman — A Slight Experience of Hasheesh— 
The Calm — Rapid Progress down the Nile — The Last Day of the Voyage — Arri- 
val at Cairo — Tourists preparing for the Desert — Parting with Achmet — Conclu 
sion, 51J 



JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION TO AFRICA. 

Arrival at Alexandria— The Landing— My First Oriental Bath— The City— Prepara- 
tions for Departure. 

I left Smyrna hi the Lloyd steamer, Conte Stitrmer, on the 
first day of November, 1851. "We passed the blue Sporadic 
Isles — Cos, and Rhodes, and Karpathos — and crossing the 
breadth of the Eastern Mediterranean, favored all the way by 
unruffled seas, and skies of perfect azure, made the pharos of 
Alexandria on the evening of the 3d. The entrance to the 
harbor is a narrow and difficult passage through reefs, and no 
vessel dares to attempt it at night, but with the first streak of 
dawn we were boarded by an Egyptian pilot, and the rising 
sun lighted up for us the white walls of the city, the windmiDs 
of the Ras el-Tin, or Cape of Eigs, and the low yellow sand- 
hills in which I recognized Africa — for they were prophetic of 
the desert behind them. 

We entered the old harbor between the island of Pha- 
ros and the main land (now connected by a peninsular strip, 
on which the Frank quarter is built), soon after sunrise 



14 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The water swarmed with boats before the anchor dropped, 
and the Egyptian health officer had no sooner departed 
than we were boarded by a crowd of dragomen, hotel run- 
ners, and boatmen. A squinting Arab, who wore a white 
dress and red sash, accosted me in Italian, offering to conduct 
me to the Oriental Hotel. A Grerman and a Smyrniote, 
whose acquaintance I had made during the voyage, joined me 
in accepting his services, and we were speedily boated ashore. 
We landed on a pile of stones, not far from a mean-looking 
edifice called the Custom-House. Many friends were there to 
welcome us, and I shall never forget the eagerness with which 
they dragged us ashore, and the zeal with which they pom- 
melled one another in their generous efforts to take charge of 
our effects. True, we could have wished that their faces had 
been better washed, their baggy trousers less ragged and their 
red caps less greasy, and we were perhaps ungrateful in allow- 
ing our Arab to rate them soundly and cuff the ears of the 
more obstreperous, before our trunks and carpet-bags could be 
portioned among them. At the Custom-House we were visit- 
ed by two dark gentlemen, in turbans and black flowing robes, 
who passed our baggage without scrutiny, gently whispering 
in our ears, " backsheesh,'''' — a word which we then heard for 
the first time, but which was to be the key-note of much of our 
future experience. The procession of porters was then set in 
motion, and we passed through several streets of whitewashed 
two story houses, to the great square of the Frank quarter, 
which opened before us warm and brilliant in the morning sun- 
shine. 

The principal hotels and consulates front on this square. 
The architecture is Italian, with here and there a dash of Sar- 



ALEXANDRIA. 15 

acenic, in the windows and doorways, especially in new build- 
ings. A small obelisk of alabaster, a present from Mohammed 
Ali, stands in the centre, on a pedestal which was meant for a 
fountain, but has no water. All this I noted, as well as a 
crowd of donkeys and donkey-boys, and a string of laden 
camels, on our way to the hotel, which we found to be a long 
and not particularly clean edifice, on the northern side of the 
square. The English and French steamers had just arrived, 
and no rooms were to be had until after the departure of the 
afternoon boat for Cairo. Our dragoman, who called himself 
Ibrahim, suggested a bath as the most agreeable means of 
passing the intermediate time. 

The clear sky, the temperature (like that of a mild July 
day at home), and the novel interest of the groups in the 
streets, were sufficient to compensate for any annoyance : but 
when we reached the square of the French Church, and saw a 
garden of palm-trees waving their coronals of glittering leaves, 
every thing else was forgotten. My German friend, who had 
never seen palms, except as starveling exotics in Sorrento and 
Smyrna, lifted his hands in rapture, and even I, who had 
heard tens of thousands rustle in the hot winds of the Tropics, 
felt my heart leap as if their beauty were equally new to my 
eyes. For no amount of experience can deprive the traveller 
of that happy feeling of novelty which marks his- first day on 
the soil of a new continent. I gave myself up wholly to its 
inebriation. Et ego in Africa, was the sum of my thoughts, 
and I neither saw nor cared to know the fact (which we dis- 
cover ed in due time), that our friend Ibrahim was an arrant 
knave. 

The bath to which he conducted us was pronounced to be 



16 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the finest in Alexandria, the most superb in all the Orient, 
but it did not at all accord with our ideas of Eastern luxury. 
Moreover, the bath-keeper was his intimate friend, and would 
bathe us as no Christians were ever bathed before. One fact 
Ibrahim kept to himself, which was, that his intimate friend 
and he shared the spoils of our inexperience. "We were con- 
ducted to a one-story building, of very unprepossessing exte- 
rior. As we entered the low, vaulted entrance, my ears were 
saluted with a dolorous, groaning sound, which I at first con- 
jectured to proceed from the persons undergoing the opera- 
tion, but which I afterward ascertained was made by a wheel 
turned by a buffalo, employed in raising water from the well. 
In a sort of basement" hall, smelling of soap-suds, and with a 
large tank of dirty water in the centre, we were received by 
the bath-keeper, who showed us into a room containing three 
low divans with pillows. Here we disrobed, and Ibrahim, 
who had procured a quantity of napkins, enveloped our heads 
in turbans and swathed our loins in a simple Adamite gar- 
ment. Heavy wooden clogs were attached to our feet, and an 
animated bronze statue led the way through gloomy passages, 
sometimes hot and steamy, sometimes cold and soapy, and 
redolent of any thing but the spicy odors of Araby the Blest, 
to a small vaulted chamber, lighted by a few apertures in the 
ceiling. The moist heat was almost suffocating ; hot water 
flowed over the stone floor, and the stone benches we sat upon 
were somewhat cooler than kitchen stoves. The bronze indi- 
vidual left us, and very soon, sweating at every pore, we began 
to think of the three Hebrews in the furnace. Our comfort 
was not increased by the groaning sound which we still heard, 
and by seeing, through a hole in the door, five or six naked 



MY FIRST ORIENTAL BATH. 11 

figures lying motionless along the edge of a steaming vat, in 
the outer room. 

Presently our statue returned with a pair of coarse hair- 
gloves on his hands. He snatched off our turbans, and then, 
seizing one of my friends by the shoulder as if he had been a 
sheep, began a sort of rasping operation upon his back. This 
process, varied occasionally by a dash of scalding water, was 
extended to each of our three bodies, and we were then suf- 
fered to rest awhile. A course of soap-suds followed, which 
was softer and more pleasant in its effect, except when he took 
us by the hair, and holding back our heads, scrubbed our faces 
most lustily, as if there were no such things as eyes, noses and 
mouths. By this time we had reached such a salamandrine 
temperature that the final operation of a dozen pailfuls of hot 
water poured over the head, was really delightful After a 
plunge in a seething tank, we were led back to our chamber 
and enveloped in loose muslin robes. Turbans were bound on 
our heads and we lay on the divans to recover from the lan- 
guor of the bath. The change produced by our new costume 
was astonishing. The stout German became a Turkish mol- 
lah, the young Smyrniote a picturesque Persian, and I — I 
scarcely know what, but, as my friends assured me, a much 
better Moslem than Frank. Cups of black coffee, and pipes 
of inferior tobacco completed the process, and in spite of the 
lack of cleanliness and superabundance of fleas, we went forth 
lighter in body, and filled with a calm content which nothing 
seemed able to disturb. 

After a late breakfast at the hotel, we sallied out for a sur- 
vey of the city. The door was beleaguered by the donkeys 
and their attendant drivers, who hailed us in all languages at 



18 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

once, "Veneg, Monsieur/" "Take a ride, sir; here is a 
good donkey ! " " Schomer Esel / " " Prendete il mio bur- 
rico ! " — and you are made the vortex of a whirlpool of don- 
keys. The one-eyed donkey-boys fight, the donkeys kick, and 
there is no rest till you have bestridden one of the little 
beasts. The driver then gives his tail a twist and his rump a 
thwack, and you are carried off in triumph. The animal is so 
small that you seem the more silly of the two, when you have 
mounted, but after he has carried you for an hour in a rapid 
gallop, you recover your dignity in your respect for him. 

The spotless blue of the sky and the delicious elasticity of 
the air were truly intoxicating, as we galloped between gar- 
dens of date-trees, laden with ripe fruit, to the city gate, and 
through it into a broad road, fringed with acacias, leading to 
the Mahmoudieh canal. But to the south, on a rise of dry, 
sandy soil, stood the Pillar of Diocletian — not of Pompey, 
whose name it bears. It is a simple column, ninety-eight feet 
in height, but the shaft is a single block of red granite, and 
stands superbly against the back-ground of such a sky and 
such a sea. It is the only relic of the ancient Alexandria 
worthy of its fame, but you could not wish for one more im- 
posing and eloquent. The glowing white houses of the town, 
the minarets, the palms and the acacias fill the landscape, but 
it stands apart from them, in the sand, and looks only to the 
sea and the desert. 

In the evening we took donkeys again and rode out of the 
town to a cafe on the banks of the canal. A sunset of burn- 
ing rose and orange sank over the desert behind Pompey's 
Pillar, and the balmiest of breezes stole towards us from the 
sea, through palm gardens. A Swiss gentleman, M. de Glon- 



THE DONKEY-BOY. 19 

zenbach, whose kindness I stall always gratefully remember 
accompanied us. As we sat under the acacias, sipping the 
black Turkish coffee, the steamer for Cairo passed, disturbing 
the serenity of the air with its foul smoke, and marring the 
delicious repose of the landscape in such wise, that we vowed 
we would have nothing to do with steam so long as we voyaged 
on the Nile. Our donkey-drivers patiently held the bridles 
of our long-eared chargers till we were ready to return. It 
was dark, and not seeing at first my attendant, a little one- 
eyed imp, I called at random : " Abdallah ! " This, it hap- 
pened, was actually his name, and he came trotting up, hold- 
ing the stirrup ready for me to mount. The quickness with 
which these young Arabs pick up languages, is truly astonish- 
ing. " Come vi chiamate ? " (what's your name ?) I asked 
of Abdallah, as we rode homeward. The words were new to 
him, but I finally made him understand then.' meaning, where- 
upon he put his knowledge into practice by asking me : " Come 
vi cliiamate?''' "Abbas Pasha," I replied. "Oh, well," 
was his prompt rejoinder, " if you are Abbas Pasha, then I am 
Seyd Pasha." The nest morning he was at the door with his 
donkey, which I fully intended to mount, but became entan- 
gled in a wilderness of donkeys, out of which Ibrahim extri- 
cated me by hoisting me on another animal. As I rode away, 
I caught a glimpse of the little fellow, crying lustily over his 
disappointment. 

We three chance companions fraternized so agreeably that 
we determined to hire a boat for Cairo, in preference to waiting 
for the next steamer. We accordingly rode over to the Mah- 
moudieh Canal, accompanied by Ibrahim, to inspect the barks. 
Like all dragomen, Ibrahim had his private preferences, and 



'JO JOURNEY IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 

conducted us on board a boat belonging to a friend of his, a 
grizzly rais, or captain. The craft was a small Tcangia, with 
a large lateen sail at the bow and a little one at the stern. It 
was not very new, but looked clean, and the rais demanded 
three hundred piastres for the voyage. The piastre is the cur- 
rent coin of the East. Its value is fluctuating, and always 
higher in Egypt than in Syria and Turkey, but may be assum- 
ed at about five cents, or twenty to the American dollar. Be- 
fore closing the bargain, we asked the advice of M. de G-on- 
zenbach, who immediately despatched his Egyptian servant 
and engaged a boat at two hundred and twenty-five piastres. 
Every thing was to be in readiness for our departure on the 
following evening. 



FIRST VOYAGE OS THE NILE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

FIRST VOYAGE ON THE NILE. 

Departure — The Kangia — The Egyptian Climate— The Mahmoudieh Canal — Entrance 
into the Nile — Pleasures of the Journey— Studying Arabic— Sight of the Pyramids 
• -The Barrage — Approach to Cairo. 

We paid a most exorbitant bill at the Oriental Hotel, and 
started on donkeyback for our boat, at sunset. Our prepara- 
tions for the voyage consisted of bread, rice, coffee, sugar, but- 
ter and a few other comestibles ; an earthen furnace and char- 
coal; pots and stew-pans, plates, knives and forks, wooden 
spoons, coffee-cups and water-jars ; three large mats of cane- 
leaves, for bedding ; and for luxuries, a few bottles of claret, 
and a gazelle-skin stuffed with choice Latakieh tobacco. We 
were prudent enough to take a supper with us from the hotel, 
and not trust to our own cooking the first night on board. 

We waited till dark on the banks of the Canal before our 
baggage appeared. There is a Custom-House on all sides of 
Alexandria, and goods going out must pay as well as goods com- 
ing in. The gate was closed, and nothing less than the silver 
oil of a dollar greased its hinges sufficiently for our cart to pass 
through. But what was our surprise on reaching the boat, to 
find the same Jcangia and the same grizzly rai's, who had pre- 
viously demanded three hundred piastres. He seemed no less 



22 JOURNEY IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 

astonished than we, for the bargain had been made by a third 
party, and I believe he bore us a grudge during the rest of the 
voyage. The contract placed the boat at our disposition ; so 
we went on board immediately, bade adieu to the kind friends 
who had accompanied us, and were rowed down the Canal in 
the full glow of African moonlight. 

Some account of our vessel and crew will not be out of 
place here. The boat was about thirty-five feet in length, with 
a short upright mast in the bow, supporting a lateen sail fifty 
feet long. Against the mast stood a square wooden box, lined 
with clay, which served as a fireplace for cooking. The mid- 
dle boards of the deck were loose and allowed entrance to the 
hold, where our baggage was stowed. The sailors also lifted 
them and sat on the cross-beams, with their feet on the shal- 
low keel, when they used the oars. The cabin, which occu 
pied the stern of the boat, was built above and below the deck, 
so that after stepping down into it we could stand upright. 
The first compartment contained two broad benches, with a 
smaller chamber in the rear, allowing just enough room, in all, 
for three persons to sleep. "We spread our mats on the 
boards, placed carpet-bags for pillows (first taking out the 
books), and our beds were made. Ibrahim slept on the deck, 
against the cabin-door. 

Our rais, or captain, was an old Arab, with a black, wrink- 
led face, a grizzly beard and a tattered blue robe. There were 
five sailors — one with crooked eyes, one with a moustache, two 
copper-colored Fellahs, and one tall Nubian, black as the 
Egyptian darkness. The three latter were our favorites, and 
more cheerful and faithful creatures I never saw. One of the 
Fellahs sang nasal love-songs the whole day long, and was al- 



EVENING ON THE CANAL. 23 

ways foremost in the everlasting refrain of " haylee-sah ! " and 
u ya salaam!'''' with which the Egyptian sailors row and tow 
and pole their boats against the current. Before we left the 
boat we had acquired a kind of affection for these three men, 
while the rais, with his grim face and croaking voice, grew more 
repulsive every day. 

We spread a mat on the deck, lighted our lantern and sat 
down to supper, while a gentle north wind slowly carried our 
boat along through shadows of palms and clear spaces of moon- 
light. Ibrahim filled the shebooks, and for four hours we sat 
in the open air, which seemed to grow sweeter and purer with 
every breath we inhaled. "We were a triad — the sacred num- 
ber — and it would have been difficult to find another triad so 
harmonious and yet differing so strongly in its parts. One 
was a Landwirth from Saxe-Coburg, a man of forty-five, tall, 
yet portly in person, and accustomed to the most comfortable 
living and the best society in Germany. Another was a Smyr- 
niote merchant, a young man of thirty, to whom all parts of 
Europe were familiar, who spoke eight languages, and who 
within four months had visited Ispahan and the Caucasus. Of 
the third it behooves me not to speak, save that he was from 
the New "World, and that he differed entirely from his friends 
in stature, features, station in life, and every thing else but mu- 
tual goodfellowship. " Ah," said the German in the fulness 
of his heart, as we basked in the moonlight, " what a heavenly 
air ! what beautiful palms ! and this wonderful repose in all 
Nature, which I never felt before !" " It is better than the 
gardens of Ispahan," added the Smyrniote. Nor did I deceive 
them when I said that for many months past I had known no 
mood of mind so peaceful and grateful. 



24 JOURNEY IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 

We rose somewhat stiff from our hard beds, but a cup of 
coffee and the fresh morning air restored the amenity of the 
voyage, The banks of the Canal are flat and dull, and the 
country through which we passed, after leaving the marshy 
brink of Lake Mareotis, was in many places still too wet from 
the recent inundation to be ploughed for the winter crops. It is 
a dead level of rich black loam, and produces rice, maize, sugar- 
cane and millet. Here and there the sand has blown over it. 
and large spaces are given up to a sort of coarse, wiry grass. 
The villages are miserable collections of mud huts, but the 
date-palms which shadow them and the strings of camels that 
slowly pass to and fro, render even their unsightliness pictu' 
resque. In two or three places we passed mud machines, driven 
by steam, for the purpose of cleaning the Canal. Kopes were 
stretched across the channel on both sides, and a large number 
of trading boats were obliged to halt, although the wind was 
very favorable. The barrier was withdrawn for us Franks, and 
the courteous engineer touched his tarboosh in reply to our 
salutations, as we shot through. 

Towards noon we stopped at a village, and the Asian went 
ashore with Ibrahim to buy provisions, while the European 
walked ahead with his fowling-piece, to shoot wild ducks for 
dinner. The American stayed on board and studied an Arabic 
vocabulary. Presently Ibrahim appeared with two fowls, two 
pigeons, a pot -of milk and a dozen eggs. The Asian set about 
preparing breakfast, and showed himself so skilful that our 
bark soon exhaled the most savory odors. When we picked 
up our European he had only two hawks to offer us, but we 
gave him in return a breakfast which he declared perfect. We 
ate on deck, seated on a mat ; a pleasant wind filled our sails, 



ATFEH. 25 

and myriads of swallows circled and twittered over our heads 
in the cloudless air. The calm, contemplative state produced 
by the coffee and pipes which Ibrahim brought us, lasted the 
whole afternoon, and the villages, the cane-fields, the Moslem 
oratories, the wide level of the Delta and the distant mounds 
of forgotten cities, passed before our eyes like the pictures of 
a dream. Only one of these pictures marred the serenity of 
our minds. It was an Arab burying-ground, on the banks of 
the Canal — a collection of heaps of mud, baked in the sun. 
At the head and foot of one of the most recent, sat two wo- 
men — paid mourners — who howled and sobbed, in long, piteous, 
despairing cries, which were most painful to hear. I should 
never have imagined that any thing but the keenest grief could 
teach such heart-breaking sounds. 

When I climbed the bank at sunset, for a walk, the minarets 
of Atfeh, on the Nile, were visible. Two rows of acacias, 
planted along the Canal, formed a pleasant arcade, through 
which we sailed, to the muddy excrescences of the town. The 
locks were closed for the night, and we were obliged to halt, 
which gave us an opportunity of witnessing an Arabic marriage 
procession. The noise of two wooden drums and a sort of fife 
announced the approach of the bride, who, attended by her 
relatives, came down the bank from the mud-ovens above. She 
was closely veiled, but the Arabs crowded around to get a peep 
at her face. No sooner had the three Franks approached, than 
she was doubly guarded and hurried off to the house of her in- 
tended husband. Some time afterwards I ascended the bank 
to have a nearer view of the miserable hovels, but was received 
with such outcries and menacing gestures, that I made a slow 
and dignified retreat. We visited, however, the house of the 



26 JOURNEY IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 

oridegroom's father, where twenty or thirty Arabs, seated on 
the ground, were singing an epithalamium, to which they kept 
time by clapping their hands. 

♦ Next morning, while our rai's was getting his permit to pass 
the locks (for which four official signatures and a fee of thirty 
piastres are necessary), we visited the bazaar, and purchased 
long tubes of jasmine-wood for our pipes, and vegetables for 
our kitchen. On all such occasions we detailed Seyd, the tall 
Nubian, whose ebony face shone resplendent under a snow-white 
turban, to be our attendant. The stately gravity with which 
he walked behind us, carrying bread and vegetables, was wor- 
thy the pipe-bearer of a Sultan. By this time we had installed 
the Asian as cook, and he very cheerfully undertook the service. 
We soon discovered that the skill of Ibrahim extended no fur- 
ther than to the making of & pilaff and the preparation of coffee. 
Moreover his habits and appearance were not calculated to make 
us relish his handiwork. The naivete with which he took the 
wash-basin to make soup in, and wiped our knives and forks on 
his own baggy pantaloons, would have been very amusing if we 
had not been interested parties. The Asian was one day 
crumbling some loaf sugar with a hammer, when Ibrahim, who 
had been watching him, suddenly exclaimed in a tone of min- 
gled pity and contempt, " that's not the way ! " Thereupon he 
took up some of the lumps, and wrapped them in one corner of 
his long white shirt, which he thrust into his mouth, and after 
Brushing the sugar between his teeth, emptied it into the bowl 
with an air of triumph. 

A whole squadron of boats was waiting at the locks, but 
with Frankish impudence, we pushed through them, and took 
9ur place in the front rank. The sun was intensely hot, and 



ENTRANCE INTO THE NILE. 27 

we sweated and broiled for a full hour, in the midst of a hor- 
rible tumult of Arabs, before the clumsy officers closed the last 
gate on us and let us float forth on the Nile. It is the west- 
ern, or Canopic branch of the river which flows past Atfeh. It 
is not broader than the Hudson at Albany, but was more mud- 
dy and slimy from its recent overflow than the Mississippi at 
New Orleans. Its water is no less sweet and wholesome than 
that of the latter river. After leaving the monotonous banks 
of the Canal, the aspect of its shores, fringed with groves of 
palm, was unspeakably cheerful and inspiring. On the opposite 
side, the slender white minarets of Fooah, once a rich manu- 
facturing town, sparkled in the noonday sun. A fresh north 
wind from the Mediterranean slowly pressed our boat against 
the strong current, while the heavily-laden merchant vessels 
followed in our wake, their two immense lateen sails expanded 
like the wings of the Arabian roc. "We drank to the glory of 
old Father Nile in a cup of his own brown current, and then 
called Ibrahim to replenish the empty shebooks. Those who 
object to tobacco under the form of cigars, or are nauseated by 
the fumes of a German meerschaum, should be told that the 
Turkish pipe, filled with Latakieh, is quite another thing. The 
aroma, which you inhale through a long jasmine tube, topped 
with a soft amber mouth-piece, is as fragrant as roses and re- 
freshing as ripe dates. I have no doubt that the atmosphere 
of celestial musk and amber which surrounded Mahomet, ac- 
cording to the Persian Chronicles, was none other than genuine 
Latakieh, at twenty piastres the oka. One thing is certain, 
that without the capacity to smoke a shebook, no one can taste 
the true flavor of the Orient. 

An hour or two after sunset the wind fell, and for the rest 



28 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of the night our men tracked the boat slowly forward, singing 
cheerily as they tugged at the long tow-rope. The Asian 
spread on the deck his Albanian capote, the European his am- 
ple travelling cloak, and the representatives of three Conti- 
nents, travelling in the fourth, lay on their backs enjoying the 
moonlight, the palms, and more than all, the perfect silence and 
repose. With every day of our journey I felt more deeply and 
gratefully this sense of rest. Under such a glorious sky, no 
disturbance seemed possible. It was of little consequence 
whether the boat went forward or backward, whether we struck 
on a sand-bar or ploughed the water under a full head of wind; 
every thing was right. My conscience made me no reproach for 
such a lazy life. In America we live too fast and work too 
hard, I thought : shall I not know what Rest is, once before I 
die ? The European said to me naively, one day : " I am a 
little surprised, but very glad, that no one of us has yet spoken 
of European politics." Europe ! I had forgotten that such a 
land existed : and as for America, it seemed very dim and 
distant. 

Sometimes I varied this repose by trying to pick up the 
language. "Wilkinson's Vocabulary and Capt. Hayes's G-ram- 
mar did me great service, and after I had tried a number of 
words with Ibrahim, to get the pronunciation, I made bolder 
essays. One day when the sailors were engaged in a most 
vociferous discussion, I broke upon them with : " What is all 
this noise about ? stop instantly ! " The effect was instantane- 
ous ; the men were silent, and Seyd, turning up his eyes in 
wonder, cried out : " Wallah ! the Howadji talks Arabic!" 
The two copper-faced Fellahs thought it very amusing, and 
every new word I learned sufficed to set them laughing for half 



SCENERY OF THE DELTA. 29 

an hour, I called out to a fisherman, seated on the bank : " 
Fisherman, have you any fish ? " and he held up a string of 
them and made answer : " Howadji, I have." This solemn 
form of address, which is universal in Arabic, makes the lan- 
guage very piquant to a student. 

During our second night on the river, we passed the site 
of ancient Sal's, one of the most renowned of Egyptian cities, 
which has left nothing but a few shapeless mounds. The coun- 
try was in many places still wet from the inundation, which 
was the largest that had occurred for many years. The Fel- 
lahs were ploughing for wheat, with a single buffalo geared to a 
sharp pole, which scratched up the soil to the depth of three 
inches. Fields of maize and sugar-cane were frequent, and I 
noticed also some plantations of tobacco, millet, and a species 
of lupin, which is cultivated for its beans. The only vegetables 
we found for sale in the villages, were onions, leeks and toma- 
toes. Milk, butter and eggs are abundant and very good, but 
the cheese of the country is detestable. The habitations resem- 
ble ant-hills, rather than human dwellings, and the villages are 
depots of filth and vermin, on the most magnificent scale. Our 
boat was fortunately free from the latter, except a few cock- 
roaches. Except the palm and acacia, without which a Nile 
journey would lose half its attractions, I saw few trees. Here 
and there stood a group of superb plane-trees, and the banana 
sometimes appeared in the gardens, but there is nothing of that 
marvellous luxuriance and variety of vegetation which is else- 
where exhibited in the neighborhood of the Tropics. 

On the evening of the third day we reached the town of 
Nadir, and, as there was no wind, went ashore for an hour 01 
two. There was a cafe on the bank — a mud house, with two 



30 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

windows, adorned with wooden frames, carved in the Moorish 
style. A divan, built of clay and whitewashed, extended along 
one side of the room, and on this we seated ourselves cross-leg- 
ged, while the host prepared the little coffee-cups and filled the 
pipes. Through the open door we saw the Nile, gleaming 
broadly under the full moon, and in the distance, two tall palm- 
trees stood clearly against the sky. Our boatmen, whom we 
had treated to hoo&a, the Egyptian beer, sat before us, and 
joined in the chorus of a song, which was sung to entertain us. 
The performers were three women, and a man who played a 
coarse reed flute. One of the women had a tambourine, another 
a small wooden drum, and the third kept time by slapping the 
closed fingers of the right hand on the palm of the left. The 
song, which had a wild, rude harmony that pleased me, was 
followed by a dance, executed by one of the women. It was 
very similar to the fandango, as danced by the natives of the 
Isthmus of Panama, and was more lascivious than graceful. 
The women, however, were of the lowest class, and their per- 
formances were adapted to the taste of the boatmen and camel- 
drivers, by whom they are patronized. 

The next day the yellow hills of the Libyan Desert, which 
in some places press the arable land of the Delta even to the 
brink of the Nile, appeared in the west. The sand appeared 
to be steadily advancing towards the river, and near Werdan 
had already buried a grove of acacias as high as their first 
branches. The tops were green and flourishing above the 
deluge, but another year or two would overwhelm them com- 
pletely. We had a thick fog during the night, and the follow- 
ing day was exceedingly hot though the air was transparent as 
crystal. Our three faces were already of the color of new 



THE BARRAGE. 31 

bronze, which was burned into the skin by the reflection from 
the water. While my friends were enjoying their usual after- 
noon repose, a secret presentiment made me climb to the roof 
of our cabin. I had not sat there long, before I descried two 
faint blue triangles on the horizon, far to the south. I rudely 
broke in upon their indolence with a shout of "the Pyra- 
mids ! " which Seyd echoed with " El-haram Faraoon ! " I 
jvas as much impressed with the view as I expected to be, but 
£ completely nullified the European's emotion by translating 
to him Thackeray's description of his first sight of those re- 
nowned monuments. 

The same evening we reached the northern point of the 
Delta, where we were obliged to remain all night, as the wind 
was not sufliciently strong to allow us to pass the Barrage. 
Singularly enough, this immense work, which is among the 
greatest undertakings of modern times, is scarcely heard of out 
of Egypt. It is nothing less than a damming of the Nile, 
which is to have the effect of producing two inundations a 
year, and doubling the crops throughout the Delta. Here, 
where the flood divides itself into two main branches, which 
find separate mouths at Damietta and Kosetta, an immense 
dam has not only been projected, but is far advanced toward 
completion. Each branch will be spanned by sixty-two arches, 
besides a central gateway ninety feet in breadth, and flanked 
by lofty stone towers. The point of the Delta, between the 
two dams, is protected by a curtain of solid masonry, and the 
abutments which it joins are fortified by towers sixty or seven- 
ty feet in height. The piers have curved breakwaters on the 
upper side, while the opposite parapet of the arches rises high 
above them, so that the dam consists of three successive ter- 



32 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

races, and presents itself -like a wedge, against the force of 
such an immense body of water. The material is brick, faced 
with stone. When complete, it is intended to close the side- 
arches during low water, leaving only the central gateway 
open. By this means sufficient water will be gained to fill all 
the irrigating canals, while a new channel, cut through the 
centre of the Delta, will render productive a vast tract of fer- 
tile land. The project is a grand one, and the only obstacle 
to its success is the light, porous character of the alluvial 
soil on which the piers are founded. ' The undertaking was 
planned and commenced by M. Linant, and has since been 
continued by other engineers. 

The Egyptian boatmen have reason to complain of the 
Barrage. The main force of the river is poured through the 
narrow space wherein the piers have not yet been sunk, which 
cannot be passed without a strong north wind. Forty or fifty 
boats were lying along the shore, waiting the favorable mo- 
ment. We obtained permission from the engineer to attach 
our boat to a large government barge, which was to be drawn 
up by a stationary windlass. As we put off, the wind freshen- 
ed, and we were slowly urged against the current to the main 
rapid, where we were obliged to hold on to our big friend. 
Behind us the river was white with sails — craft of all kinds, 
pushed up by the wind, dragged down by the water, striking 
against each other, entangling their long sails and crowding 
into the narrow passage, amid shouts, cries and a bewildering 
profusion of Arabic gutturals. For half an hour, the scene was 
most exciting, but thanks to the windlass, we reached smoother 
water, and sailed off gayly for Cairo. 

The true Nile expanded before us, nearly two miles in 



WE REACH BOULAK. 38 

width. To the south, the three Pyramids of Gizeh loomed 
up like isolated mountain-peaks on the verge of the Desert. 
On the right hand the Mokattam Hills lay red and bare in 
the sunshine, and ere long, over the distant gardens of Shoo- 
bra, we caught sight of the Citadel of Cairo, and the minarets 
of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. The north wind was faith- 
ful : at three o'clock we were anchored in Boulak, paid our 
rais, gave the crew a backsheesh, for which they kissed our 
hands with many exclamations of " taib I " (good !) and set 
out for Cairo 



94 TOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER III. 

PICTURES OF CAIRO. 

%utrance— The Ezbekiyeh — Saracenic Houses— Donkeys — The Bazaars— The Streets 
— Processions — View from the Citadel — Mosque of Mohammed Ali — The Road to 
Suez— The Island of Rhoda. 

Our approach, to and entrance into Cairo was the illuminated 
frontispiece to the volume of my Eastern life. From the Nile 
we had already seen the mosque of Sultan Hassan, the white 
domes, and long, pencil-like minarets of the new mosque of 
Mohammed Ali, and the massive masonry of the Citadel, 
crowning a projecting spur of the Mokattam Hills, which 
touches the city on the eastern side. But when, mounted 
on ambling donkeys, we followed the laden baggage-horses 
through the streets of Boulak, and entered the broad, shaded 
highway leading through gardens, grain-fields and groves of 
palm and banana, to the gate of the KzbeTciyeh — the great 
square of Cairo — the scene, which, at a distance, had been 
dimmed and softened by the filmy screen of the Egyptian air, 
now became so gay, picturesque and animated, so full of life 
and motion and color, that my dreams of the East were at 
once displaced by the vivid reality. The donkey-riding multi- 
tudes who passed continually to and fro, were wholly unlike 



THE GREAT SQUARE OF CAIRO. 35 

the crowds of Smyrna and Alexandria, where the growing in- 
fluence of European dress and customs is already visible. 
Here, every thing still exhaled the rich aroma of the Orient, 
as it had been wafted to me from the Thousand and One 
Nights, the Persian poets and the Arab chroniclers. I forgot 
that I still wore a Frank dress, and found myself wondering at 
the temerity of the few Europeans we met. I looked without 
surprise on the long processions of donkeys carrying water- 
skins, the heavily-laden camels, the women with white masks 
on their faces and black bags around their bodies, the stolid 
Nubian slaves, the grave Abyssinians, and all the other va- 
rious characters- that passed and repassed us. But because 
they were so familiar, they were none the less interesting, for 
all had been acquaintances, when, like Tennyson, " true Mus- 
sulman was I, and sworn," under the reign of the good Haroun 
Al-Easchid. 

We entered the Ezbekiyeh, which is wholly overgrown with 
majestic acacias and plane*trees, and thickets of aromatic flow- 
ering shrubs. It is in the Frank quarter of the city, and was 
first laid out and planted by order of Mohammed Ali. All the 
principal hotels front upon it, and light, thatched cafes fill the 
space under the plane-trees, where the beau monde of Cairo 
promenade every Sunday evening. Nothing of the old City of 
the Caliphs, except a few tall minarets, can be seen from this 
quarter, but the bowery luxuriance of the foliage is all that the 
eye demands, and over the plain white walls, on every side, 
the palms — single, or in friendly groups — lift their feathery 
crowns. After installing our household gods in the chambers 
of the quiet and comfortable Hotel d'Europe, we went out to 
enjoy the sweet evening air in front of one of the cafes. I 



36 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

tried for the first time'tlie narghileh, or Persian water-pipe, 
The soft, velvety leaves of the tobacco of Shiraz are burned in 
a small cup, the tube of which enters a glass vase, half filled 
with rose-seented water. From the top of this vase issues a 
flexible tube, several feet in length, with a mouth-piece of wood 
or amber. At each inspiration, the smoke is drawn downward 
and rises through the water with a pleasant bubbling sound. It 
is deprived of all the essential oil of the weed, and is exceed 
ingly mild, cool and fragrant. But instead of being puffed out 
of the mouth in whiffs, it is breathed full into the lungs and 
out again, like the common air. This is not so difficult a mat- 
ter as might be supposed ; the sensation is pleasant and slight- 
ly exhilarating, and is not injurious to the lungs when moder- 
ately indulged in. 

The Turkish quarter of Cairo still retains the picturesque 
Saracenic architecture of the times of the Caliphs. The 
houses are mostly three stories in height, each story projecting 
over the other, and the plain stone walls are either whitewash- 
ed or striped with horizontal red bars, in a manner which would 
be absurd under a northern sky, but which is here singularly 
harmonious and agreeable. The only signs of sculpture are 
occasional door-ways with richly carved arches, or the light 
marble gallery surrounding a fountained court. I saw a few 
of these in retired parts of the city. The traveller, however, 
has an exhaustless source of delight in the wooden balconies 
inclosing the upper windows. The extraordinary lightness, 
grace and delicate fragility of their workmanship, rendered still 
more striking by contrast with the naked solidity of the walls 
to which they cling, gave me a new idea of the skill and fancy 
of the Saracenic architects. The wood seems rather woven in 



DONKEYS AND DONKEY-BOYS. 37 

the loom, than cut with the saw and chisel. Through these 
lattices of fine network, with borders worked in lace-like pat- 
terns, and sometimes topped with slender turrets and pinnacles, 
the wives of the Cairene merchants sit and watch the crowds 
passing softly to and fro in the twilight of the bazaars, them- 
selves unseen. It needed no effort of the imagination to people 
the fairy watch-towers under which we rode daily, with forms 
as beautiful as those which live in the voluptuous melodies of 
Hafiz. 

To see Cairo thoroughly, one must first accustom himself 
to the ways of those long-eared cabs, without the use of which 
I would advise no one to trust himself in the bazaars. Don- 
key-riding is universal, and no one thinks of going beyond the 
Frank quarter on foot. If he does, he must submit to be fol- 
lowed by not less than six donkeys with their drivers. A 
friend of mine, who was attended by such a cavalcade for two 
hours, was obliged to yield at last, and made no second attempt. 
When we first appeared in the gateway of our hotel, equipped 
for an excursion, the rush of men and animals was so great, 
that we were forced to retreat until our servant and the porter 
whipped us a path through the yelling and braying mob. Af- 
ter one or two trials, I found an intelligent Arab boy, named 
Kish, who, for five piastres a day, furnished strong and ambi- 
tious donkeys, which he kept ready at the door from morning 
till night. The other drivers respected Kish's privilege, and 
thenceforth I had no trouble. The donkeys are so small that 
my feet, nearly touched the ground, but there is no end to their 
strength and endurance. Their gait, whether a pace or a gal- 
lop, is so easy and light that fatigue is impossible. The dri- 
vers take great pride in having high-cushioned red saddles, and 



38 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

in hanging bits of jingling brass to the bridles. They keep 
their donkeys close shorn, and frequently beautify them by 
painting them, various colors. The first animal I rode had legs 
barred like a zebra's, and my friend's rejoiced in purple flanks 
and a yellow belly. The drivers run behind them with a short 
stick, punching them from time to time, or giving them a sharp 
pinch on the rump. Yery few of them own their donkeys, and 
I understood their pertinacity when I learned that they fre- 
quently received a beating on returning home in the evening 
empty-handed. 

The passage of the bazaars seems at first quite as hazardous 
on donkey-back as on foot, but it is the difference between knock- 
ing somebody down and being knocked down yourself, and one 
naturally prefers the former alternative. There is no use in 
attempting to guide the donkey, for he won't be guided. The 
driver shouts behind, and you are dashed at full speed into a 
confusion of other donkeys, camels, horses, carts, water-car- 
riers and footmen. In vain you cry out : " Bess I " (enough !) 
"Piano!" and other desperate adjurations ; the driver's only 
reply is : " Let the bridle hang loose ! " You dodge your 
head under a camel-load of planks ; your leg brushes the wheel 
of a dust-cart ; you strike a fat Turk plump in the back ; you 
miraculously escape upsetting a fruit-stand ; you scatter a com- 
pany of spectral, white-masked women, and at last reach some 
more quiet street, with the sensation of a man who has stormed 
a battery. At first this sort of riding made me very nervous, 
but finally I let the donkey go his own way, and took a curious 
interest in seeing how near a chance I raia of striking or being 
struck. Sometimes there seemed no hope of avoiding a violent 
collision, but by a series of the most remarkable dodges he gen- 



THE POPULACE OF CAIRO. 39 

erally carried me through in safety. The cries of the driver, 
running behind, gave me no little amusement : " The Howadji 
comes ! Take care on the right hand ! take care on the left 
hand ! man, take care ! maiden, take care ! boy, get 
out of the way ! The Howadji comes ! " Kish had strong lungs 
and his donkey would let nothing pass him, and so, wherever 
we went, we contributed our full share to the universal noise 
and confusion. 

Cairo is the cleanest of all oriental cities. The regulations 
established by Mohammed AH are strictly carried out. Each 
man is obliged to sweep before his own door, and the dirt is 
carried away in carts every morning. Besides this, the streets 
are watered several times a day, and are nearly always cool 
and free from dust. The constant evaporation of the water, 
however, is said to be injurious to the eyes of the inhabitants, 
though in other respects the city is healthy. The quantity of 
sore-eyed, cross-eyed, one-eyed, and totally blind persons one 
meets every where, is surprising. There are some beggars, 
mostly old or deformed, but by no means so abundant or imper- 
tinent as in the Italian cities. A number of shabby police- 
men, in blue frock-coats and white pantaloons, parade the prin- 
cipal thoroughfares, but I never saw their services called into 
requisition. The soldiers, who wear a European dress of white 
cotton, are by far the most awkward and unpicturesque class. 
Even the Fellah, whose single brown garment hangs loose from 
his shoulders to his knees, has an air of dignity compared with 
these Frankish caricatures. The genuine Egyptian costume, 
which bears considerable resemblance to the Greek, and espe 
cially the Hydriote, is simple and graceful. The colors are 
dark— principally brown, blue, green and violet — relieved by a 



40 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

heavy silk sash of some" gay pattern, and by the red slippers 
and tarboosh. But, as in Turkey, the Pashas and Beys, and 
many of the minor officers of the civil departments have adopt- 
ed the Frank dress, retaining only the tarboosh, — a change 
which is by no means becoming to them. I went into an Egyp- 
tian barber-shop one day, to have my hair shorn, and en- 
joyed the preparatory pipe and coffee in company with two in- 
dividuals, whom I supposed to be French or Italians of the 
vulgar order, until the barber combed out the long locks on the 
top of their head, by which Mussulmen expect to be lifted up 
into Paradise. When they had gone, the man informed me 
that one was Khalim Pasha, one of the grandsons of Moham- 
med Ali, and the other a Bey, of considerable notoriety. The 
Egyptians certainly do not gain any thing by adopting a costume 
which, in this climate, is neither so convenient nor so -agreeable 
as their own. 

Besides the animated life of the bazaars, which I had an 
opportunity of seeing, in making my outfit for the winter's 
journey, I rarely went out without witnessing some incident or 
ceremony illustrative of Egyptian character and customs. One 
morning I encountered a stately procession, with music and 
banners, accompanying a venerable personage, with a green tur- 
ban on his head and a long white beard flowing over his breast. 
This, as Kish assured me, was the Shereef of Mecca. He was 
attended by officers in the richest Turkish and Egyptian cos- 
tumes, mounted on splendid Arabian steeds, who were almost 
hidden under their broad housings of green and crimson velvet, 
embroidered with gold. The people on all sides, as he passed, 
laid their hands on their breasts and bowed low, which he an- 
swered by slowly lifting his hand. It was a simple motion, but 
nothing could have been more calm and majestic. 



FESTIVE PROCESSIONS. 41 

On another occasion, I met a bridal procession in the streets 
of Boulak. Three musicians, playing on piercing flutes, head- 
ed the march, followed by the parents of the bride, who, sur- 
rounded by her maids, walked under a crimson canopy. She 
was shrouded from head to foot in a red robe, over which a 
gilded diadem was fastened around her head. A large crowd 
?f friends and relatives closed the procession, close behind 
which followed another, of very different character. The chief 
actors were four boys, of five or six years old, on their way to 
be circumcised. Each was mounted on a handsome horse, and 
wore the gala garments of a full-grown man, in which their little 
bodies were entirely lost. The proud parents marched by their 
sides, supporting them, and occasionally holding to their lips 
bottles of milk and sherbet. One was a jet black Nubian, who 
seemed particularly delighted with his situation, and grinned on 
all sides as he passed along. This procession was headed by 
a buffoon, who carried a laugh with him which opened a ready 
passage through the crowd. A man followed balancing on his 
chin a long pole crowned with a bunch of flowers. He came to 
me for backsheesh. His success brought me two swordsmen 
out of the procession, who cut at each other with scimitars and 
caught the blows on their shields. The coolness, swiftness and 
skill with which they parried the strokes was really admirable, 
and the concluding flourish was a masterpiece. One of them, 
striking with the full sweep of his arm, aimed directly at the 
face of the other, as if to divide his head into two parts ; but, 
without making a pause, the glittering weapon turned, and 
sliced the air within half an inch of his eyes. The man neither 
winked nor moved a muscle of his face, but after the scimitar 
had passed, dashed it up with his shield, which he then reversed, 



42 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and dropping on one knee, held to me for backsheesh. After 
these came a camel, with a tuft of ostrich feathers on his head 
and a hoy on his back, who pounded vigorously on two wooden 
drums with one hand, while he stretched the other down to me 
for backsheesh.- Luckily the little candidates for circumci- 
sion were too busily engaged with their milk bottles and sugar- 
plums, to join in the universal cry. 

I had little time to devote to the sights of Cairo, and was 
obliged to omit the excursions to the Petrified Forest, to Helio- 
polis and Old Cairo, until my return. Besides the city itself, 
which was always full of interest, I saw little else except the 
Citadel and the Island of Rhoda. We took the early morning 
for our ride to the former place, and were fortunate enough to 
find our view of the Nile-plain unobscured by the mists cus- 
tomary at this season. The morning light is most favorable to 
the landscape, which lies wholly to the westward. The shad- 
ows of the Citadel and the crests of the Mokattam Hills then 
lie broad and cool over the city, but do not touch its minarets, 
which glitter in the air like shafts of white and rosy flame. 
The populace is up and stirring, and you can hear the cries of 
the donkeymen and water-carriers from under the sycamores and 
acacias that shade the road to Boulak. Over the rich palm- 
gardens, the blue streak of the river and the plain beyond, you 
see the phantoms of two pyramids in the haze which still cui- 
tains the Libyan Desert. Northward, beyond the parks and 
palaces of Shoobra, the Nile stretches his two great arms to- 
ward the sea, dotted, far into the distance, with sails that flash 
in the sun. From no other point, and at no other time, is 
Cairo so grand and beautiful. 

Within the walls of the Citadel is the Bir Youssef — Jo- 



THE CITADEL. 43 

sept's Well — as it is called by the Arabs, not from the vir- 
tuous Hebrew, but from Sultan Saladin, who dug it out and 
put it in operation. The well itself dates from the old Egyp- 
tian time, but was filled with sand and entirely lost for many 
centuries. It consists of an upper and lower shaft, cut through 
the solid rock, to the depth of two hundred and sixty feet. A 
winding gallery, lighted from the shaft, extends to the bottom 
of the first division, where, in a chamber cut in the rock, a 
mule turns the large wheel which brings up a continual string 
of buckets from the fountain below. The water is poured into 
a spacious basin, and carried thence to the top by another 
string of buckets set in motion at the surface. Attended by 
two Arabs with torches, we made the descent of the first shaft 
and took a drink of the fresh, cool fluid. This well, and the 
spot where the Mameluke Emin Bey jumped his horse over 
the wall and escaped the massacre of his comrades, are the 
only interesting historical points about the Citadel ; and the 
new mosque of Mohammed Ali, which overlooks the city from 
the most projecting platform of the fortifications, is the only 
part which has any claim to architectural beauty. Although 
it has been in process of erection for many years, this mosque 
is not nearly completed internally. The exterior is finished, 
and its large, white, depressed dome, flanked by minarets so 
tall and reed-like that they seem ready to bend with every 
breeze, is the first signal of Cairo to travellers coming up or 
down the Nile. The interior walls are lined throughout with 
oriental alabaster, stained with the orange flush of Egyptian 
sunsets, and the three domes blaze with elaborate arabesques 
of green, blue, crimson and gold. In a temporary chamber, 
fitted up in one corner, rests the coffin of Mohammed Ali, cov- 



44 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ered with a heavy velvet pall, and under the marble arches be- 
fore it, a company of priests, squatted on the green carpet cov- 
ering the floor, bow their heads continually and recite prayers 
or fragments of the Koran. 

Before descending into the city, I rode a little way into 
the Desert to the tombs of the Caliphs, on the road to Suez. 
They consist mostly of stone canopies raised on pillars, with 
mosques or oratories attached to them, exhibiting considerable 
variety in their design, but are more curious than impressive. 
The track in the sand made by the pilgrims to Mecca and the 
overland passengers to Suez, had far more real interest in my 
eyes. The pilgrims are fewer, and the passengers more nu- 
merous, with each successive year. English-built omuibuses, 
whirled along by galloping post-horses, scatter the sand, and 
in the midst of the herbless Desert, the travellers regale them- 
selves with beefsteak and ale, and growl if the accustomed 
Cheshire is foiiad wanting. At this rate, how long will it be 
before there is a telegraph-station in Mecca, and the operator 
explodes with his wire a cannon on the Citadel of Cairo, to 
announce that the prayers on Mount Arafat have commenced ? 

The Island of Rhoda, which I visited on a soft, golden 
afternoon, is but a reminiscence of what it was a few years 
ago. Since Ibrahim Pasha's death it has been wholly neglect- 
ed, and though we found a few gardeners at work, digging up 
the sodden flower-beds and clipping the rank myrtle hedges, 
they only served to make the neglect more palpable. During 
the recent inundation, the Nile had risen to within a few 
inches of covering the whole island, and the soil was still soft 
and clammy. Nearly all the growths of the tropics are nur- 
tured here ; the coffee, the Indian fig, the mango, and other 



RECORDS OF SILLINESS. 45 

trees alternate with the palm, orange, acacia, and the yellow 
mimosa, whose blossoms make the isle fragrant. I gathered 
a bunch of roses and jasmine-flowers from the unpruned vines. 
In the centre of the garden is an artificial grotto lined with 
shells, many of which have been broken off and carried away 
by ridiculous tourists. There is no limit to human silliness, 
as I have wisely concluded, after seeing Pompey's Pillar dis- 
figured by " Isaac Jones " (or some equally classic name), in 
capitals of black paint, a yard long, and finding " Jenny Lind" 
equally prominent on the topmost stone of the great Pyramid. 
(Of course, the enthusiastic artist chiselled his own name be- 
side hers.) A mallet and chisel are often to be found in the 
outfits of English and American travellers, and to judge from 
the frequency of certain names, and the pains bestowed upon 
their inscription, the owners must have spent the most of their 
time ip Upper Egypt, in leaving records of their vulgar vanity. 



46 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY INTO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Necessity of Leaving Immediately — Engaging a Boat — The Dragomen — Achmet el 
Saidi — Funds— Information — Procuring an Outfit— Preparing for the Desert— The 
Lucky Day — Exertions to Leave — Off ! 

I devoted but little time to seeing Cairo, for the travelling 
season had arrived, and a speedy departure from Cairo was 
absolutely necessary. The trip to Khartoum occupies at least 
two months, and it is not safe to remain there later than the 
first of March, on account of the heat and the rainy season, 
which is very unhealthy for strangers. Dr. Knoblecher, the 
Catholic Apostolic Vicar for Central Africa, had left about a 
month previous, on his expedition to the sources of the White 
Nile. I therefore went zealously to work, and in five days my 
preparations were nearly completed. I prevailed upon the 
European of our triad, who had intended proceeding no further 
than Cairo, to join me for the voyage to Assouan, on the Nubi- 
an frontier, and our first care was to engage a good dahdbiyeh, 
or Nile-boat. This arrangement gave me great joy, for no- 
where is a congenial comrade so desirable as on the Nile. My 
friend appreciated the river, and without the prospect of seeing 
Thebes, Ombos and Philae, would have cheerfully borne all 
the inconveniences and delays of the journey, for the Nile's 



ENGAGING A BOAT. 47 

Bake alone. Commend me to such a man, for of the hundreds 
of tourists who visit the East, there are few such ! On my ar- 
rival, I had found that the rumors I had heard on the road 
respecting the number of travellers and the rise in the price of 
boats, were partially true. Not more than a dozen boats had 
left for Upper Egypt, but the price had been raised in antici- 
pation. The ship carpenters and painters were busily employ- 
ed all along the shore at Boulak, in renovating the old barks 
or building new ones, and the Beys and Pashas who owned the 
craft were anticipating a good harvest. Some travellers paid 
forty-five pounds a month for their vessels, but I found little 
difficulty in getting a large and convenient boat, for two per- 
sons, at twenty pounds a month. This price, it should be un- 
derstood, includes the services often men, who find their own 
provisions, and only receive a gratuity in case of good behavior. 
The American Consul, Mr. Kahil, had kindly obtained for me 
the promise of a bark from Ismail Pasha, before our arrival — 
a superb vessel, furnished with beds, tables, chairs and divans, 
in a very handsome style — which was offered at thirty pounds 
a month, but it was much larger than we needed. In the 
course of my inspection of the fleet of barks at Boulak, I found 
several which might be had at fifteen, and seventeen pounds 
a month, but they were old, inconvenient, and full of vermin. 
Our boat, which I named the Cleopatra, had been newly cleansed 
and painted, and contained, besides a spacious cabin, with 
beds and divans, a sort of portico on the outside, with cush- 
ioned seats, where we proposed to sit during the balmy twi- 
lights, and smoke our shebooks. 

Without a tolerable knowledge of Arabic, a dragoman ia 
indispensable. The few phrases I had picked up, on the way 



48 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

from Alexandria, availed, me little, and would have been use- 
less in Nubia, where either the Berberi language, or a different 
Arabic dialect is spoken ; and I therefore engaged a dragoman 
for the journey. This class of persons always swarm in Cairo, 
and I had not been there a day before I was visited by half a 
dozen, who were anxious to make the trip to Khartoum. How 
they knew I was going there, I cannot imagine ; but I found 
that they knew the plans of every traveller in Cairo as well. 
I endeavored to find one who had already made the journey, 
but of all who presented themselves, only two had been farther 
than the second Cataract. One of these was a Nubian, who 
had made a trip with the Sennaar merchants, as far as Shendy, 
in Ethiopia ; but he had a sinister, treacherous face, and I re- 
fused him at once. The other was an old man, named Suley- 
man Ali, who had been for three years a servant of Champol- 
lion, whose certificate of his faithfulness and honesty he pro- 
duced. 

He had been three years in Sennaar, and in addition to 
Italian, (the only Frank tongue he knew), spoke several 
Ethiopian dialects. He was a fine, venerable figure, with an 
honest face, and I had almost decided to take him, when I 
learned that he was in feeble health and would scarcely be able 
to endure the hardships of the journey. I finally made choice 
of a dark Egyptian, born in the valley of Thebes. He was call- 
ed \chmet el Saidi, or Achmet of Upper Egypt, and when a boy 
had bcm for several years a servant in the house of the Eng- 
lish Consul at Alexandria. He spoke English fluently, as well 
as a little Italian and Turkish. I was first attracted to him by 
his bold, manly face, and finding that his recommendations were 
excellent, and tha* he had sufficient spirit, courage and address 



OUTFIT — -FUNDS. 49 

to serve us both in case of peril, I engaged him, notwithstand- 
ing he had never travelled beyond Wadi Haifa (the Second 
Cataract). I judged, however, that I was quite as familiar 
with the geography of Central Africa as any dragoman I could 
procure, and that, in any case, I should find it best to form my 
own plans and choose my own paths. How far I was justified 
in my choice, will appear in the course of the narrative. 

The next step was to procure a double outfit — for the Nile 
and the Desert — and herein Achmet, who had twice made the 
journey to Mount Sinai and Petra, rendered me good service. 
I had some general knowledge of what was necessary, but with- 
out the advantage of his practical experience, should have been 
very imperfectly prepared. As it was, many things were for- 
gotten in the haste of departure, the need of which I felt when 
it was too late to procure them. I had been prudent enough, 
when in Vienna, to provide myself with Berghaus's great map 
of Arabia and the Yalley of the Nile, which, with a stray vol- 
ume of Russegger, were my only guides. In Khartoum, after- 
wards, I stumbled upon a copy of Hoskins's Ethiopia. The 
greater part of my funds I changed into Egyptian silver med- 
jids, colonnati, or Spanish pillar-dollars, and the Austrian 
dollar of Maria Theresa, all of which are current as far as Sen- 
naar and Abyssinia. I also procured five hundred piastres in 
copper pieces of five paras (about half a cent) each, which were 
contained in a large palm-basket, and made nearly an ass's 
load. In addition to these supplies, I obtained from an Arme- 
nian merchant a letter of credit on his brother in Khartoum, for 
two thousand piastres, on which, he gave me to understand, I 
should be obliged to pay a discount of twenty per cent. I en- 
deavored, but in vain, to procure some information relative to 
3 



50 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the cost of travelling in Nubia and the countries beyond. The 
Frank merchants knew nothing, except that the expenses were 
vast, and predicted that the sum I took would prove insufficient 
and that I should certainly become involved in great difficul- 
ties and embarrassments. The native merchants who had made 
the journey were all jealous of a foreign traveller attempting 
to penetrate into their peculiar domain, and gave me no satis- 
factory information, while to the imagination of the Cairenes, 
Sennaar is the utmost verge of the world, and he who has been 
there and returned in safety, enjoys the special protection of 
Allah. Even Achmet, although he showed no signs of fear, 
and did not hesitate to accompany me, informed his family and 
friends that we were going no further than Wadi Haifa, for he 
said they would certainly detain him by force, should they 
learn the truth. 

I did not think it necessary to obtain a firman from Abbas 
Pasha, which might readily have been procured. The Ameri- 
can, English and Austrian Consuls kindly gave me letters to 
the principal Consular agents and merchants in Khartoum, be- 
sides which, Achmet professed to have some acquaintance with 
Lattif Pasha, who was then Pasha of Soudan. To the Hon. 
Mr. Murray, the English Consul-G-eneral, and Mr. Constantine 
Kahil, the American Vice-Consul at Cairo, I was especially 
indebted for favors. The former intrusted me with despatches 
for Khartoum and Obeid, in Kordofan, and the latter furnished 
me with letters to the Governors of Thebes, Assouan and Ko- 
rosko, asking the latter to insure my safety on the journey 
through the Nubian Desert. Thus prepared, I anticipated no 
further trouble on the road than from hard-trotting camels, 
Band, brackish water, and the like privations, which are easily 
borne 



OUTFIT FOR THE BOAT. 51 

The furnishing of a Nile-boat requires considerable know- 
ledge of housekeeping. The number of small articles required 
for this floating speck of civilization in a country of barbarians, 
is amazing to a bachelor. I had no idea that the art of cook- 
ing needed such a variety of tools and appliances, and for the 
first time in my life, conceived some respect for the fame of Ude 
and Soyer. There are frying-pans and stew-pans ; coffee-pots 
and tea-pots ; knives, forks, spoons, towels, cups, ladles and 
boxes ; butter, lard, flour, rice, macaroni, oil, vinegar, mus- 
tard and pepper ; and no end to the groceries. We must have 
a table and chairs, quilts and pillows, mats, carpets and nap- 
kins, and many other articles which I should never have 
thought of without the help of Achmet and of M. Pini, who 
keeps a general depot of supplies. His printed lists, in four 
languages, lighten the traveller's labor very greatly. His ex- 
perience in regard to the quantity required, is also of much 
service ; otherwise an inexperienced person would not know 
whether to take twelve or fifty pounds of rice, nor how much 
sugar belonged to so much coffee. The expense of our outfit, 
including bread, fowls, mutton, charcoal, and every other 
requisite, was about two thousand piastres — a little more than 
one hundred dollars. The calculation was made for one 
month's provisions for two persons. 

For my further journey after leaving the Nile, I was 
recommended to take a large supply, on account of the scarcity 
and expense of many articles in Upper Nubia and Sennaar. I 
therefore purchased sufficient tea, coffee, flour, rice, biscuits, 
sugar, macaroni and dried fruit to last me two months, beside 
a complete canteen, or supply of articles necessary for life in 
the desert. I took an extra quantity of gunpowder, tobacco 



52 JOUBNET TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and coffee, for presents to the Arab shekhs. The entire cost 
of this outfit was about nine hundred piastres. In addition, I 
procured a good Turkish tent for two hundred and fifty pias- 
tres, to which I added a supply of tent-pins, lantern-poles, wa- 
ter-skins, and leathern water-flasks, all these articles being pro- 
cured to better advantage in Cairo. I did not propose adopt- 
ing the Egyptian costume until I had made some progress in 
the language, and therefore contented myself with purchasing 
a hornous of camel's hair, a sabre, a broad shawl of Tripoli 
silk, for the waist, and shoes of white leather, which are very 
cool and comfortable. I also followed the custom of the Euro- 
pean residents, in having my hair shorn close to the head, and 
wearing a white cotton skull-cap. Over this was drawn the 
red tarboosh, or fez, and as a protection against the sun, I 
bound a large white shawl around it, which was my first les- 
son in turban-making. 

Achmet, influenced by a superstition which is not peculiar 
to the East, begged me to hasten our preparations, in order 
that we might leave Boulak on Monday, which day, he averred, 
was the luckiest in the week, and would render our journey 
prosperous from beginning to end. Knowing from experience 
that half the success of the journey is in the start, and believ- 
ing that it is better to have superstition with you than against 
you, I determined to gratify him. He was as zealous as I 
could wish, and we rested not from morning to night, until at 
last, from the spirit with which we labored, it seemed almost a 
matter of life and death, that the boat should leave on Mon- 
day. I had a clause inserted in our written contract with the 
captain, that he should forfeit a day's rent, in case he was not 
ready at the appointed hour ; but, in spite of this precaution, 



THE LUCKY DAY. 63 

Achmet, who well knew the indifference of the Arab nature, 
was constantly on his track. Two or three times a day he 
galloped to Boulak, to hasten the enlistment of the men, the 
baking of bread for the voyage, the furbishing of the cabin, 
and the overhauling of the sails, oars and rigging. My Euro- 
pean friends in Cairo smiled at our display of activity, saying 
that such a thing had never been known, as a boat sailing at 
the appointed time, and that I was fatiguing myself to no 
purpose. 

Monday (Nov. 17th) came, and the Egyptian cook, Sa- 
lame, whom we had engaged for the Nile voyage, was de- 
spatched to the markets to lay in a supply of fowls, eggs, but- 
ter and vegetables. My letters home — the last I expected 
to send, for months to come — were committed to the Post 
Office, and after an early dinner, we saw our baggage and 
stores laden upon carts and started for Boulak, under Ach- 
met's guidance. "We took leave of the few friends we had 
made in Cairo, and followed. The Cleopatra was still lying 
in the midst of a crowd of dahabiyehs, but the American flag, 
hoisted at the peak of her little mizzenmast, was our " cornet," 
proclaiming departure. We found Achmet unjacketed and 
unturbaned, stowing away the stores, with one eye on the 
rais, and another (as it seemed to me) on each of the tardy 
sailors. There was still charcoal to be bought, and hois gras 
for kindling fires, and clubs for the men, to prevent invasions 
from the shore, with many more of those wants which are 
never remembered until the last moment. The afternoon wore 
away; the shadows of the feathery date-trees on the island 
of Bhoda stretched long and cool across the Nile ; but before 
the sun had touched the tops of the Pyramids, we had squeezed 



54 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

out from the shipping of Boulak, and were slowly working up 
the Nile before a light wind, while our boatmen thumped the 
tarahooha, and sang their wild Arab songs of departure. The 
rai's came up to know whether he had not fulfilled his contract, 
and Achmet with a cheerful face, turned to me and said : 
' Praised be Allah, master ! we shall have a lucky journey." 




Achmet. 
CHAPTER Y. 

THE PYRAMID* AND MEMPHIS. 



Howling Dervishes — A Chicken Factory — Eide to the Pyramids— Quarrel with tho 
Arabs — The Ascent — View from the Summit — Backsheesh — Effect of Pyramid 
climbing— The Sphinx — Playing the Cadi — "We obtain Justice — Yisit to Sakkara 
and the Mummy Pits — The Exhumation of Memphis — Interview with M. Marietta 
-Account of his Discoveries — Statue of Eemeses II. — Eeturn to the Nile. 

" And Morning opes in haste her lids, 
To gaze upon tho Pyramids." — Emekson. 

We went no further than the village of Gizeh, three or four 
miles above Cairo, on the first evening, having engaged our 
donkeys and their drivers to meet us there and convey us to 
the Pyramids on the following morning. About dusk, the rais 

moored our boat to the bank, beside a College of dervishes, 
whose unearthly chants, choruses and clapping of hands, were 

prolonged far into the night. Their wild cries, and deep, mo- 



56 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AERIC &.. 

notorious bass howlings so filled our ears that we could not 
choose but listen, and, in spite of our fatigue, sleep was impos- 
sible. After performing for several hours, they gradually 
ceased, through sheer exhaustion, though there was one tough 
old dervish, who continued to gasp out, " Allah! Allah!''' 
with such a spasmodic energy, that I suspected it was pro- 
duced by the involuntary action of his larynx, and that he 
could not have stopped, even had he been so minded. 

When we threw open the latticed blinds of our cabin, be- 
fore sunrise, the next morning, the extraordinary purity of the 
air gave rise to an amusing optical delusion on the part of my 
friend. " See that wall ! " said he, pointing to a space be- 
tween two white houses ; " what a brilliant color it is painted, 
and how those palms and these white houses are relieved 
against it ! " He was obliged to look twice before he per- 
ceived that what he had taken for a wall close at hand, was 
really the sky, and rested upon a far-off horizon. Our don- 
keys were in readiness on the bank, and I bestrode the same 
faithful little gray who had for three days carried me through 
the bazaars of Cairo. We left orders for the rais to go on to 
Bedracheyn, a village near the supposed site of Memphis, and 
taking Achmet with us, rode off gayly among the mud hovels 
and under the date-trees of Gizeh, on our way to the Pyramids. 
Near the extremity of the village, we entered one of the large 
chicken-hatching establishments for which the place is famed, 
but found it empty. We disturbed a numerous family of Fel- 
lahs, couched together on the clay floor, crept on our hands 
and knees through two small holes and inspected sundry ov ens 
covered with a layer of chaff, and redolent of a mild, moist 
heat and a feathery smell. The owner informed us that for 



RIDE TO THE PYRAMIDS. 53 

the first four or five days the eggs were exposed to smoke as 
well as heat, and that when the birds began to pick the shell, 
which generally took place in fifteen days, they were placed in 
another oven and carefully accouched. 

The rising sun shone redly on the Pyramids, 'as we rode 
out on the broad harvest land of the Nile. The black, 
unctuous loam was still too moist from the inundation to be 
ploughed, except in spots, here and there, but even where the 
water had scarce evaporated, millions of germs were pushing 
their slender blades up to the sunshine. In that prolific soil, 
the growth of grain is visible from day to day. The Fellahs 
were at work on all sides, preparing for planting, and the un- 
gainly buffaloes drew their long ploughs slowly through the soil. 
Where freshly turned, the earth had a rich, soft lustre, like 
dark-brown velvet, beside which the fields of young wheat, 
beans and lentils, glittered with the most brilliant green. 
The larks sang in the air and flocks of white pigeons clustered 
like blossoms on the tops of the sycamores. There, in Novem- 
ber, it was the freshest and most animating picture of Spring. 
The direct road to the Pyramids was impassable, on account 
of the water, and we rode along the top of a dyke, intersected 
by canals, to the edge of the Libyan Desert — a distance of 
nearly ten miles. The ruptures in the dyke obliged us occa- 
sionally to dismount, and at the last canal, which cuts off the 
advancing sands from the bounteous plain on the other side, 
our donkeys were made to swim, while we were carried across 
on the shoulders of two naked Arabs. They had run out in 
advance to meet us, hailing us with many English and French 
phrases, while half a dozen boys, with earthen bottles which 
they had just filled from the slimy canal, crowded after them, 
3* 



58 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

insisting, in very good English, that we should drink at once 
and take them with us to the Pyramids. 

Our donkeys' hoofs now sank deep in the Libyan sands, 
and we looked up to the great stone-piles of Cheops, Ce- 
phrenes and Mycerinus, not more than half a mile distant. 
Our sunrise view of the Pyramids on leaving G-izeh, was suffi- 
cient, had I gone no further, and I approached them, without 
the violent emotion which sentimental travellers experience, 
but with a quiet feeling of the most perfect satisfaction. The 
form of the pyramid is so simple and complete, that nothing is 
left to the imagination. Those vast, yellowish-gray masses, 
whose feet are wrapped in the silent sand, and whose tops lean 
against the serene blue heaven, enter the mind and remain in 
the memory with no shock of surprise, no stir of unexpected 
admiration. The impression they give and leave, is calm, 
grand and enduring as themselves. 

The sun glared hot on the sand as we toiled up the ascent 
to the base of Cheops, whose sharp corners were now broken 
into zigzags by the layers of stone. As we dismounted in his 
shadow, at the foot of the path which leads up to the entrance, 
on the northern side, a dozen Arabs beset us. They belonged 
to the regular herd who have the Pyramids in charge, and are 
so renowned for their impudence that it is customary to employ 
the janissary of some Consulate in Cairo, as a protection. Be- 
fore leaving G-izeh I gave Achmet my sabre, which I thought 
would be a sufficient show to secure us from their importuni- 
ties. However, when we had mounted to the entrance and 
were preparing to climb to the summit, they demanded a dollar 
from each for their company on the way. This was just four 
times the usual fee, and we flatly refused the demand. My 



A QUARREL. 59 

friend had in the mean time become so giddy from the few steps 
he had mounted, that he decided to return, and I ordered Ach- 
met, who knew the way, to go on with me and leave the Arabs 
to their howlings. Their leader instantly sprang before him, 
and attempted to force him back. This was too much for 
Achmet, who thrust the man aside, whereupon he was instantly 
beset by three or four, and received several hard blows. The 
struggle took place just on the verge of the stones, and he was 
prudent enough to drag his assailants into the open space before 
the entrance of the Pyramid. My friend sprang towards the 
group with his cane, and I called to the donkey-driver to bring 
up my sabre, but by this time Achmet had released himself, 
with the loss of his turban. 

The Arabs, who had threatened to treat us in the same 
manner, then reduced their demand to the regular fee of five 
piastres for each. I took three of them and commenced the 
ascent, leaving Achmet and my friend below. Two boys fol- 
lowed us, with bottles of water. At first, the way seemed 
hazardous, for the stones were covered with sand and fragments 
which had fallen from above, but after we had mounted twenty 
courses, the hard, Emooth blocks of granite formed broader and 
more secure steps. Two Arabs went before, one holding each 
of my hands, while the third shoved me up from the rear. 
The assistance thus rendered was not slight, for few of the 
stones are less than four feet in height. The water-boys 
scampered up beside us with the agility of cats. "Wc stopped 
a moment to take breath, at a sort of resting-place half-way 
up — an opening in the Pyramid, communicating with the 
uppermost of the interior chambers. I had no sooner sat 
down on the nearest stone, than the Arabs stretched themselves 



60 JOURNEY TO CEXTKAL AFRICA. 

at my feet and entertained me with most absurd mixture of 
flattery and menace. One, patting the calves of my legs, cried 
out ; " Oh, what fine, strong legs ! how fast they came up : 
nobody ever went up the Pyramid so fast!" while the others 
added : u Here you must give us backsheesh : every body gives 
us a dollar here." My only answer was, to get up and begin 
climbing, and they did not cease pulling and pushing till they 
left me breathless on the summit. The whole ascent did not 
occupy more than ten minutes. 

The view from Cheops has been often described. I cannot 
say that it increased my impression of the majesty and gran- 
deur of the Pyramid, for that was already complete. My eyes 
wandered off from the courses of granite, broadening away 
below my feet, to contemplate the glorious green of the Nile- 
plain, barred with palm-trees and divided by the gleaming flood 
of the ancient river ; the minarets of Cairo ; the purple walls 
of the far Arabian mountains ; the Pyramid groups of Sakkara 
and Dashoor, overlooking disinterred Memphis in the South • 
and the arid yellow waves of the Libyan Desert, which rolled 
unbroken to the western sky. The clear, open heaven above, 
which seemed to radiate light from its entire concave, clasped 
in its embrace and harmonized the different features of this 
wonderful landscape. There was too much warmth and bril- 
liance for desolation. Every thing was alive and real; the 
Pyramids were not ruins, and the dead Pharaohs, the worship- 
pers of Athor and Apis, did not once enter my mind. 

My wild attendants did not long allow me to enjoy the 
view quietly. To escape from their importunities for back- 
sheesh, I gave them two piastres in copper coin, which instantly 
turned their flatteries into the most bitter complaints. It waa 



PHYSICAL EFFECT OF THE ASCENT. 61 

insulting to give so little, and they preferred having none ; if 
I would not give a dollar, I might take the money back. I 
took it without more ado, and put it into my pocket. This 
rather surprised them, and first one, and then another came 
to me and begged to have it again, on his own private account. 
I threw the coins high into the air, and as they clattered down 
on the stones, there ensued such a scramble as would have sent 
any but Arabs over the edge of the Pyramid. We then com- 
menced the descent, two seizing my hands as before, and drag- 
ging me headlong after them. We went straight down the 
side, sliding and leaping from stone to stone without stopping 
to take breath, and reached the base in five or six minutes. I 
was so excited from the previous aggression of the Arabs, that 
I neither felt fatigue nor giddiness on the way up and down, 
and was not aware how violent had been my exertions. But 
when I touched the level sand, all my strength vanished in an 
instant. A black mist came over my eyes, and I sank down 
helpless and nearly insensible. I was scarcely able to speak, 
and it was an hour before I could sit upright on my donkey. 
I felt the Pyramid in all my bones, and for two or three days 
afterwards moved my joints with as much difficulty as a rheu- 
matic patient. 

The Arabs, who at first had threatened to kill Achmet, 
now came forward and kissed his hands, humbly entreating 
pardon. But his pride had been too severely touched by the 
blows he had received, and he repulsed them, spitting upon 
the ground, as the strongest mark of contempt. We consider- 
ed it due to him, to ourselves, and to other travellers after us, 
to represent the matter to the Shekh of the Pyramids, who 
lives in a village called Kinnayseh, a mile distant, and ordered 



62 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Aehmet to conduct us "thither. We first rode along the base 
of the Pyramid of Cephrenes, and down the sand drifts to the 
majestic head of the Sphinx. I shall not attempt to describe 
this enormous relic of Egyptian art. There is nothing like it 
in the world. Those travellers who pronounce its features to 
be negro in their character, are certainly very hasty in their 
conclusions. That it is an Egyptian head is plainly evident, 
notwithstanding its mutilation. The type, however, is rather 
fuller and broader than is usual in Egyptian statues. 

On reaching the village we found that the shekh was ab- 
sent in Cairo, but were received by his son, who, after spelling 
out a few words of my Arabic passport and hearing Achmet's 
relation of the affair, courteously invited us to his house. We 
rode between the mud huts to a small court-yard, where we 
dismounted. A carpet was spread on the ground, under a 
canopy of palm-leaves, and the place of honor was given to us, 
the young shekh seating himself on the edge, while our don- 
key-drivers, water-boys and a number of villagers, stood res- 
pectfully around. A messenger was instantly despatched to 
the Pyramids, and in the mean time we lighted the pipe of 
leace. The shekh promised to judge the guilty parties and 
ounish them in our presence. Coffee was ordered, but as the 
unlucky youth returned and indiscreetly cried out, " Ma 
feesh / " (there is none !) the shekh took him by the neck, 
and run him out of the court-yard, threatening him with all 
manner of penalties unless he brought it. 

We found ourselves considered in the light of judges, and 
I thought involuntarily of the children playing Cadi, in the 
Arabian tale. But to play our Cadi with the necessary gravi- 
ty of countenance was a difficult matter. It was rather em* 



PLAYING THE CADI. • 63 

barrassing to sit cross-legged so long, and to look so severe. 
My face was of the color of a boiled lobster, from tbe sun, and 
in order to protect my eyes, I bad taken off my cravat and 
bound it around tbe red tarboosb. My friend bad swathed bis 
felt hat in like manner, and when tbe shekb looked at us from 
time to time, while Achmet spoke of our friendship with all 
the Consuls in Cairo, it was almost too much to enjoy quietly. 
However, the shekh, who wore a red cap and a single cotton 
garment, treated us with much respect. His serene, impar- 
tial demeanor, as he heard the testimony of the various wit- 
nesses who were called up, was most admirable. After half 
an hour's delay, the messenger returned, and tbe guilty par- 
ties were brought into court, looking somewhat alarmed and 
very submissive. We identified the two ringleaders, and after 
considering tbe matter thoroughly, the shekb ordered that 
they should be instantly bastinadoed. We decided between 
ourselves to let the punishment commence, lest the matter 
should not be considered sufficiently serious, and then to show 
our mercy by pardoning the culprits. 

One of the men was then thrown on the ground and held 
by the head and feet, while the shekh took a stout rod and 
began administering the blows. Tbe victim had prepared 
himself by giving his bornous a double turn over his back, and 
as tbe end of tbe rod struck the ground each time, there was 
much sound with the veriest farce of punishment. After half 
a dozen strokes, he cried out, (< ya salaam ! " whereupon tbe 
crowd laughed heartily, and my friend ordered the shekb to 
stop. The latter cast the rod at our feet, and asked us to 
continue tbe infliction ourselves, until we were satisfied. We 
told him and the company in general, through Achmet, that 



64 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

we were convinced of his readiness to punish imposition ; that 
we wished to show the Arabs that they must in future treat 
travellers with respect ; that we should send word of the affair 
to Cairo, and they might rest assured that a second assault 
would he more severely dealt with. Since this had been 
demonstrated, we were Willing that the punishment should now 
cease, and in conclusion returned our thanks to the shekh, for 
his readiness to do us justice. This decision was received 
with great favor ; the two culprits came forward and kissed 
our hands and those of Achmet, and the villagers pronounced 
a unanimous sentence of " ta'ib I " (good !) The indiscreet 
youth again appeared, and this time with coffee, of which we 
partook with much relish, for this playing the Cadi was rather 
fatiguing. The shekh raised our hands to his forehead, and 
accompanied us to the end of the village, where we gave the 
coffee-bearer a backsheesh, dismissed our water-boys, and 
turned our donkeys' heads toward Abousir. 

Achmet's dark skin was pale from his wounded pride, and I 
was faint from pyramid-climbing, but a cold fowl, eaten as we 
sat in the sun, on the border of the glowing Desert, comforted 
us. The dominion of the sand has here as distinct a bound 
as that of the sea ; there is not thirty yards from the black, 
pregnant loam, to the fiery plain, where no spear of grass 
grows. Our path lay sometimes on one side of this border, 
sometimes on the other, for more than an hour and a half, till 
we reached the ruined pyramids of Abousir, where it turned 
southward into the Desert. After seeing Cheops and Ce- 
phrenes, these pyramids are only interesting on account of 
their dilapidated state and the peculiarity of their forms, some 
of their sides taking a more obtuse angle at half their height. 



SAKKARA AND MEMPHIS. 65 

They are buried deep in the sand, which has so drifted toward 
the plain, that from the broad hollow lying between them and 
the group of Sakkara, more than a mile distant, every sign of 
vegetation is shut out. Vast, sloping causeways of masonry 
lead up to two of them, and a large mound, occupying the 
space between, suggests the idea that a temple formerly stood 
there. The whole of the desert promontory, which seemed to 
have been gradually blown out on the plain, from the hills in 
the rear, exhibits traces here and there of ruins beneath the 
surface. My friend and I, as we walked over the hot sand, 
before our panting donkeys, came instinctively to the same 
conclusion — that a large city must have once occupied the 
space between, and to the southward of, the two groups of 
pyramids. It is not often that amateur antiquarians find such 
sudden and triumphant confirmation of their conjectures, as 
we did. 

On the way, Achmet had told us of a Frenchman who had 
been all summer digging in the sand, near Sakkara. After we 
had crawled into the subterranean depot of mummied ibises, 
and nearly choked ourselves with dust in trying to find a pot 
not broken open ; and after one of our donkeymen went into a 
human mummy pit and brought out the feet and legs of some 
withered old Egyptian, we saw before us the residence of this 
Frenchman ; a mud hut on a high sand-bank. It was an un- 
fortunate building, for nearly all the front wall had tumbled 
down, revealing the contents of his kitchen. One or two 
Arabs loitered about, but a large number were employed at 
the end of a long trench which extended to the hills. 

Before reaching the house a number of deep pits barred 
our path, and the loose sand, stirred by our feet, slid back into 



66 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the bottom, as if eager- to hide the wonders they disclosed. 
Pavements, fresh as when first laid ; basement-walls of white 
marble, steps, doorways, pedestals and fragments of pillars 
glittered in the sun, which, after the lapse of more than two 
thousand years, beheld them again. I slid down the side of 
the pit and walked in the streets of Memphis. The pavement 
of bitumen, which once covered the stone blocks, apparently to 
protect them and deaden the noise of horses and chariots, was 
entire in many places. Here a marble sphinx sat at the base 
of a temple, and stared abstractedly before her ; there a sculp- 
tured cornice, with heavy mouldings, leaned against the walls 
of the chamber into which it had fallen, and over all were 
scattered fragments of glazed and painted tiles and sculptured 
alabaster. The principal street was narrow, and was appa- 
rently occupied by private dwellings, but at its extremity were 
the basement-walls of a spacious edifice. All the pits opened 
on pavements and walls, so fresh and cleanly cut, that they 
seemed rather the foundations of a new city, laid yesterday, 
than the remains of one of the oldest capitals of the world. 

We approached the workmen, where we met the discoverer 
of Memphis, Mr. Auguste Mariette. On finding we were not 
Englishmen (of whose visits he appeared to be rather shy), he 
became very courteous and communicative. He apologized 
for the little he had to show us, since on account of the Van- 
dalism of the Arabs, he was obliged to cover up all his discov- 
eries, after making his drawings and measurements. The 
Egyptian authorities are worse than apathetic, for they would 
not hesitate to burn the sphinxes for lime, and build barracks 
for filthy soldiers with the marble blocks. Besides this, the 
French influence at Cairo was then entirely overshadowed by 



M. MARIETTE AND HIS LABORS. 67 

that of England, and although. M. Mariette was supported in 
his labors by the French Academy, and a subscription headed 
by Louis Napoleon's name, he was forced to be content with 
the simple permission to dig out these remarkable ruins and 
describe them. He could neither protect them nor remove 
the portable sculptures and inscriptions, and therefore prefer- 
red giving them again into the safe keeping of the sand 
Here they will be secure from injury, until some more fortu- 
nate period, when, possibly, the lost Memphis may be entirely 
given to the world, as fresh as Pompeii, and far more grand 
and imposing. 

I asked M. Mariette what first induced him to dig for Mem- 
phis in that spot, since antiquarians had fixed upon the mounds 
near Mitrahenny (a village in the plain below, and about four 
miles distant), as the former site of the city. He said that 
the tenor of an inscription which he found on one of the blocks 
quarried out of these mounds, induced him to believe that the 
principal part of the city lay to the westward, and therefore 
he commenced excavating in the nearest sand-hill in that di- 
rection. After sinking pits in various places he struck on an 
avenue of sphinxes, the clue to all his after discoveries. Fol- 
lowing this, he came upon the remains of a temple (probably 
the Serajpeum, or Temple of Serapis, mentioned by Strabo), 
and afterward upon streets, colonnades, public and private edi - 
fices, and all other signs of a great city. The number of 
sphinxes alone, buried under these high sand-drifts, amounted 
to two thousand, and he had frequently uncovered twenty or 
thirty in a day. He estimated the entire number of .statues, 
inscriptions and reliefs, at between four and five thousand. 
The most remarkable discovery waa that of eight colossal 



68 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

statues, which were evidently the product of Grecian art. 
During thirteen months of assiduous labor, with but one as- 
sistant, he had made drawings of all these objects and forward- 
ed them to Paris. In order to be near at hand, he had built 
an Arab house of unburnt bricks, the walls of which had just 
tumble down for the third time. His workmen were then 
engaged in clearing away the sand from the dwelling of some 
old Memphian, and he intended spreading his roof over the 
massive walls, and making his residence in the exhumed city. 

The man's appearance showed what he had undergone, and 
gave me an idea of the extraordinary zeal and patience requir- 
ed to make a successful antiquarian. His face was as brown 
as an Arab's, his eyes severely inflamed, and his hands as 
rough as a bricklayer's. His manner with the native work- 
men was admirable, and they labored with a hearty good-will 
which almost supplied the want of the needful implements. 
All they had were straw baskets, which they filled with a sort 
of rude shovel, and then handed up to be carried off on the 
heads of others. One of the principal workmen was deaf and 
dumb, but the funniest Arab I ever saw. He was constantly 
playing off his jokes on those who were too slow or too negli- 
gent. An unlucky girl, stooping down at the wrong time to 
lift a basket of sand, received the contents of another on her 
head, and her indignant outcry was hailed by the rest with 
screams of laughter. I saw the same man pick out of the sand 
a glazed tile containing hieroglyphic characters. The gravity 
with which he held it before him, feigning to peruse it, occa- 
sionally nodding his head, as if to say, "Well done for old 
Pharaoh !" could not have been excelled by Burton himself. 

Strabo states that Memphis had a circumference of seven- 



M. MARIETTE AND HIS LABORS. 09 

teen miles, and therefore both M. Mariette and the antiqua- 
rians are right. The mounds of Mitrahenny probably mark 
the eastern portion of the city, while its western limit extend- 
ed beyond the Pyramids of Sakkara, and included in its sub- 
urbs those of Abousir and Dashoor. The space explored by 
M. Mariette is about a mile and a half in length, ^cl some- 
what more than half a mile in breadth. He was then continu- 
ing his excavations westward, and had almost reached the first 
ridge of the Libyan Hills, without finding the termination of 
the ruins. The magnitude of his discovery will be best known 
when his drawings and descriptions are given to the world. 
A few months after my visit, his labors were further re- 
warded by finding thirteen colossal sarcophagi of black marble, 
and he has recently added to his renown by discovering an en- 
trance to the Sphinx. Yet at that time, the exhumation of 
the lost Memphis — second only in importance to that of Nine- 
veh — was unknown in Europe, except to a few savans in Paris, 
and the first intimation which some of my friends in Cairo and 
Alexandria had of it, was my own account of my visit, in the 
newspapers they received from America. But M. Mariette is 
a young man, and will yet see his name inscribed beside those 
of Burckhardt, Belzoni and Layard. 

"We had still a long ride before us, and I took leave of 
Memphis and its discoverer, promising to revisit him on my 
return from Khartoum. As we passed the brick Pyramid of 
Sakkara, which is built in four terraces of equal height, the 
dark, grateful green of the palms and harvest-fields of the Nile 
appeared between two sand-hills — a genuine balm to our heat- 
ed eyes. We rode through groves of the fragrant mimosa to 
a broad dike, the windings of which we were obliged to follow 



70 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

across the plain, as the soil was still wet and adhesive. It was 
too late to visit the beautiful Pyramids of Dashoor, the first of 
which is more than three hundred feet in height, and from a 
distance has almost as grand an effect as those of Gizeh. Our 
tired donkeys lagged slowly along to the palm-groves of Mitra- 
henny, where we saw mounds of earth, a few blocks of red 
granite and a colossal statue of Remeses II. (Sesostris) — which 
until now were supposed to be the only remains of Memphis. 
The statue lies on its face in a hole filled with water. The 
countenance is said to be very beautiful, but I could only see 
the top of Sesostris's back, which bore a faint resemblance to 
a crocodile. 

Through fields of cotton in pod and beans in blossom, we 
rode to the Nile, dismissed our donkeys and their attendants, 
and lay down on some bundles of corn-stalks to wait the arri- 
val of our boat. But there had been a south wind all day, 
and we had ridden much faster than our men could tow. We 
sat till long after sunset before the stars and stripes, floating 
from the mizzen of the Cleopatra, turned the corner below 
Bedrasheyn. When, at last, we sat at our cabin-table, weary 
and hungry, we were ready to confess that the works of art 
produced by our cook, Salame, were more marvellous and in- 
teresting than Memphis and the Pyramids. 



LEAVE THE PYRAMIDS. ?! 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROM MEMPHIS TO SIOUT. 

Leaving the Pyramids — A Calm and a Breeze — A Coptic Visit — Minyeh — The Grottoei 
of Beni-Hassan — Doum Palms and Crocodiles— Djcbel Aboufayda— Entrance into 
Upper Egypt — Diversions of the Boatmen — Siout— Its Tombs — A Landscape — A 
Bath. 

" It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, 
Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream." 

Leigh Hunt's Sonnet to tiie Nile. 

The extent of my journey into Africa led me to reverse the 
usual plan pursued by travellers on the Nile, who sail to As- 
souan or "Wadi-Halfa without pause, and visit the antiquities 
on their return. I have never been able to discern the phi- 
losophy of this plan. The voyage up is always longer, and 
more tedious (to those heathens who call the Nile tedious), 
than the return ; besides which, two visits, though brief, with 
an interval between, leave a more complete and enduring 
image, than a single one. The mind has time to analyze and 
contrast, and can afterwards confirm or correct the first im- 
pressions. How any one can sail from Cairo to Siout, a voy- 
age of two hundred and sixty miles, with but one or two points 
of interest, without taking the Pyramids with him in memory, 
I cannot imagine. "Were it not for that recollection, I should 
have pronounced Modern Egypt more interesting than the 



Va JOURNEY TO CENTRAL -AFRICA. 

Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies. I omitted seeing 
none of the important remains on my upward journey, so that 
I might he left free to choose another route homeward, if pos- 
sible. It seemed like slighting Fortune to pass Dendera, and 
Karnak and Onibos, without notice. Opportunity is rare, and 
a wise man will never let it go by him. I knew not what clan- 
gers I might have to encounter, but I knew that it would be a 
satisfaction to me, even if speared by the Bedouins of the Ly- 
bian Desert, to think : " You rascals, you have killed me, but 
I have seen Thebes ! " 

The Pyramids of Dashoor followed us all the next day 
after leaving Memphis. Our sailors tugged us slowly along 
shore, against a mild south wind, but could not bring us out of 
the horizon of those red sandstone piles. Our patience was 
tried, that day and the next, by our slow and toilsome progress, 
hindered still more by running aground on sand-banks, but we 
were pledged to patience, and had our reward. On the morn- 
ing of the fourth day, as we descried before us the minarets of 
Benisouef, the first large town after leaving Cairo, a timid 
breeze came rustling over the dourra-fields to the north, and 
puffed out the Cleopatra's languid sails. The tow-rope was 
hauled in, our Arabs jumped on board and produced the drum 
and tambourine, singing lustily as we moved out into the 
middle of the stream. The wind increased; the flag lifted itself 
from the mast and streamed toward Thebes, and Benisouef 
went by, almost before we had counted its minarets. I tried 
in vain to distinguish the Pyramid of Illahoon, which stands 
inland, at the base of the Libyan Hills and the entrance of the 
pass leading to the Lake of Fyoom, the ancient Mceris. Near 
the Pyramid are the foundations of the famous Labyrinth, 



A COPTIC VISIT. 13 

lately excavated by Dr. Lepsius. The Province of Fyoom, 
surrounding the lake, is, with the exception of the Oases in 
the Libyan Desert, the only productive land west of the moun- 
tains bordering the Nile. 

All afternoon, with both sails full and our vessel leaning 
against the current, we flew before the wind. At dusk, the 
town of Feshn appeared on our left ; at midnight, we passed 
Abou-Grirgeh and the Mounds of Behnesa, the ancient Oxyrin- 
chus ; and when the wind left us, at sunrise, we were seventy 
miles from Benisouef. The Arabian Mountains here approach 
the river, and at two points terminate in abrupt precipices of 
yellow calcareous rock. The bare cliffs of Djebel el Tayr (the 
Mountain of Birds), are crowned with the " Convent of the 
Pulley," so called from its inaccessible situation, and the fact 
that visitors are frequently drawn to the summit by a rope and 
windlass. While passing this convent, a cry came up from 
the muddy waters of the river : " We are Christians, How- 
adji ! " and presently two naked Coptic monks wriggled over 
the gunwale, and sat down, panting and dripping, on the deck. 
We gave them backsheesh, which they instantly clapped into 
their mouths, but their souls likewise devoutly yearned for 
brandy, which they did not get. They were large, lusty fellows, 
and whatever perfection of spirit they might have attained, 
their flesh certainly had never been unnecessarily mortified. 
After a breathing spell, they jumped into the river again, and 
we soon saw them straddling from point to point, a3 they 
crawled up the almost perpendicular cliff. At Djebel el Tayr, 
the birds of Egypt (according to an Arabic legend) assemble 
annually and choose one of their number to remain there for a 
year. My friend complained that the wild geese and ducks 
4 



74 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

were not represented, and out of revenge fired at a company of 
huge pelicans, who were seated on a sand-bank 

The drum and tambourine kept lively time to the voices of 
our sailors, as we approached Minyeh, the second large town 
on the river, and the capital of a Province. But the song this 
time had a peculiar significance. After the long-drawn sound, 
something between a howl and a groan, which terminated it, we 
were waited upon by a deputation, who formally welcomed us 
to the city. We responded by a backsheesh of twenty-five 
piastres, and the drum rang louder than ever. We stayed in 
Minyeh long enough to buy a leg of mutton, and then sailed 
for the tombs of Beni-Hassan. The wind left us as we reached 
a superb palm-grove, which for several miles skirts the foot of 
Djebel Shekh Timay. The inhabitants are in bad odor, and in 
addition to our own guard, we were obliged to take two men 
from the village, who came armed with long sticks and built a 
fire on the bank, beside our vessel. This is a regulation of 
the Government, to which travellers usually conform, but I 
never saw much reason for it. We rose at dawn and wandered 
for hours through the palms, to the verge of the Desert. When 
within two or three miles of the mountain of Beni-Hassan, we 
provided ourselves with candles, water-flasks and weapons, and 
set off in advance of our boat. The Desert here reached the 
Nile, terminating in a bluff thirty to forty feet in height, which 
is composed of layers of pebbles and shelly sand, apparently 
the deposit of many successive floods. I should have attri- 
buted this to the action of the river, cutting a deeper channel 
from year to year, but I believe it is now acknowledged that the 
bed of the Nile is gradually rising, and that the yearly inun 
dation covers a much wider space than in the time of the Pha- 



THE GROTTOES OF BENI-HASSAN. *75 

raohs. It is difficult to reconcile this fact with the very per 
ceptible encroachments which the sand is making on the Libyan 
shore ; but we may at least be satisfied that the glorious harvest- 
valley through which the river wanders can never be wholly 
effaced thereby. 

"We climbed to the glaring level of the Desert, carrying 
with us the plumes of a beautiful gray heron which my friend 
brought down. A solitary Arab horseman was slowly moving 
along the base of the arid hills, and we descried in the dis- 
tance a light-footed gazelle, which leisurely kept aloof and 
mocked our efforts to surround it. At the foot of the moun- 
tain we passed two ruined villages, destroyed several years ago 
by Ibrahim Pasha, on account of the marauding propensities of 
the inhabitants. It has a cruel sound, when you are told that 
the people were driven away, and their dwellings razed to the 
ground, but the reality is a trifling matter. The Arabs take 
their water-skins and pottery, jump into the Nile, swim across 
to a safer place, and in three or four days their palaces of mud 
are drying in the sun. "We came upon them the next morning, 
as thievishly inclined as ever, and this was the only place 
where I found the people otherwise than friendly. 

A steep path, up a slope covered with rounded boulders of 
hard black rock, leads to the grottoes of Beni-Hassan. They 
are among the oldest in Egypt, dating from the reign of Osir- 
tasen I, about 1750 years before the Christian Era, and are 
interesting from their encaustic paintings, representing Egyp- 
tian life and customs at that early date. The rock chambers 
extend for nearly half a mile along the side of the mountain. 
The most of them are plain and without particular interest, 
and they have all suffered from the great spoilers of Egypt — 



76 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the Persian, the Copt and the Saracen. Four only retain their 
hieroglyphics and paintings, and are adorned with columns 
hewn from the solid rock. The first we entered contained four 
plain, fluted columns, one of which had been shivered in the 
centre, leaving the architrave and capital suspended from the 
ceiling. The walls were covered with paintings, greatly faded 
and defaced, representing the culture and manufacture of flax, 
the sowing and reaping of grain, and the making of bread, 
besides a number of spirited hunting and fishing scenes. The 
occupant of the tomb appears to have been a severe master, 
for his servants are shown in many places, undergoing the pun- 
ishment of the bastinado, which is even inflicted upon women. 
He was also wealthy, for we still see his stewards presenting 
him with tablets showing the revenues of his property. He 
was a great man in Joseph's day, but the pit in which he lay 
is now empty, and the Arabs have long since burned his 
mummy to boil their rice. 

The second tomb is interesting, from a painting represent- 
ing thirty men, of a foreign nation, who are brought before the 
deceased occupant. Some antiquarians suppose them to be the 
brethren of Joseph, but the tomb is that of a person named 
Nehophth, and the number of men does not correspond 
with the Bible account. Two of the southern tombs, which 
are supported by pillars formed of four budding locust-stalks 
bound together, are covered with paintings representing differ- 
ent trades and professions. The rear walls are entirely devot- 
ed to illustrations of gymnastic exercises, and the figures are 
drawn with remarkable freedom and skill. There are never 
more than two persons in a group, one being painted red and 
the other black, in order the better to show the position of 



ANTINOE. 11 

each. In at least five hundred different groupings the same 
exercise is not repeated, showing a wonderful fertility of inven- 
tion, either on the part of the artist or the wrestlers. The 
execution of these figures fully reached my ideas of Egyptian 
pictorial art, but the colors were much less vivid than some 
travellers represent. The tombs are not large, though numer- 
ous, and what is rather singular, there is not the least trace of 
a city in the neighborhood, to which they could have belonged. 

The next day at noon we passed between the mounds of 
Antinoe and Hermopolis Magna, lying on opposite banks of the 
Nile. Antinoe, built by the Emperor Adrian in honor of his 
favorite, the glorious Antinous, who was here drowned in the 
river, has entirely disappeared, with the exception of its foun- 
dations. Twenty-five years ago, many interesting monuments 
were still standing, but as they were, unfortunately, of the 
white calcareous stone of the Arabian Hills, they have been 
long since burnt for lime. Before reaching Antinoe we had 
just come on board, after a long walk on the western bank, and 
the light wind which bore us toward the mountain of Shekh 
Abaddeh was too pleasant to be slighted ; so we saw nothing 
of Adrian's city except some heaps of dirt. The splendid 
evening, however, which bathed the naked cliffs of the moun- 
tain in rosy flame, was worth more to us than any amount of 
marble blocks. 

The guide book says, " hereabouts appears the doum palm, 
and crocodiles begin to be more frequently seen." The next 
morning we found one of the trees, but day after day we vainly 
sought a crocodile. My friend recalled a song of Greibel's, con- 
cerning a German musician who played his violin by the Nile 
till the crocodiles came out and danced around the Pyramids, 



78 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and in his despair would also have purchased a violin, if any 
could have been found in Siout. I had seen alligators on the 
Mississippi, and took the disappointment more complacently. 
The doum palm differs from the columnar date-palm in the 
form of its leaves, which are fan-like, and in having a branching 
trunk. The main stem divides a few feet from the root, each 
of the branches again forming two, and each of these two more, 
till the tree receives a broad, rounded top. The fruit hangs 
below in clusters, resembling small cocoa-nuts, and has a sort 
of gingerbread flavor, which is not disagreeable. When fully 
dry and hard, it takes a polish like ivory, and is manufactured 
by the Arabs into beads, pipe bowls and other small articles. 
We approached the mountain of Aboufayda with a strong 
and favorable wind. Here the Nile, for upward of ten miles, 
washes the foot of lofty precipices, whose many deep fissures 
and sharp angles give them the appearance of mountains in 
ruin. The afternoon sun shone full on the yellow rocks, and 
their jagged pinnacles were cut with wonderful distinctness 
against the perfect blue of the sky. This mountain is con- 
sidered the most dangerous point on the Nile for boats, and the 
sailors always approach it with fear. Owing to its deep side- 
gorges, the wind sometimes shifts about without a moment's 
warning, and if the large lateen sail is caught aback, the vessel 
is instantly overturned. During the passage of this and other 
similar straits, two sailors sit on deck, holding the sail-rope, 
ready to let it fly in the wind on the slightest appearance of 
clanger. The shifting of the sail is a delicate business, at such 
times, but I found it better to trust to our men, awkward as 
they were, than to confuse by attempting to direct them. At 
Djebel Shekh Said, the sailors have a custom of throwing two 



APPROACH TO UPPER EGYPT. 79 

or three loaves of bread on the water, believing that it will be 
taken up by two large white birds and deposited on the tomb 
of the Skekk. The wind favored us in passing Aboufayda ; 
the Cleopatra dashed the foam from the rough waves, and in 
two or three hours the southern corner of the mountain lay 
behind us, leaning away from the Nile like the shattered pylon 
of a temple. 

Before sunset we passed the city • of Manfalout, whose 
houses year by year topple into the mining flood. The side 
next the river shows only halves of buildings, the rest of 
which have been washed away. In a few years the tall and 
airy minarets will follow, and unless the inhabitants continue 
to shift their dwellings to the inland side, the city will entirely 
disappear. From this point, the plain of Siout, the garden of 
Upper Egypt, opened wide and far before us. The spur of 
the Libyan hills, at the foot of which the city is built, shot 
out in advance, not more than ten or twelve miles distant, but 
the Nile, loth to leave these beautiful fields and groves, winds 
hither and thither in such a devious, lingering track, that you 
must sail twenty-five miles to reach El Hamra, the port of 
Siout. The landscape, broader and more majestic than those 
of Lower Egypt, is even richer and more blooming. The 
Desert is kept within its proper bounds ; it is no longer visible 
from the river, and the hills, whose long, level lines frame the 
view on either side, enhance by their terrible sterility the 
luxury of vegetation which covers the plain. It is a boun* 
teous land, visited only by healthy airs, and free from the pes- 
tilence which sometimes scourges Cairo. 

The wind fell at midnight, but came to us again the next 
morning at sunrise, and brought us to El Hamra before noon. 



SO JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Our men were in high spirits at having a day of rest be' 
fore them, the contracts for boats always stipulating for a halt 
of twenty-four hours at Siout and Esneh, in order that they 
may procure their supplies of provisions. They buy wheat 
and dourra, have it ground in one of the rude mills worked by 
buffaloes, and bake a sufficient quantity of loaves to last two 
or three weeks. Our men had also the inspiration of back- 
sheesh in their song, and their dolorous love-melodies rang 
from shore to shore. The correctness with which these people 
sing is absolutely surprising. Wild and harsh ns are their 
songs, their choruses are in perfect accord, and even when at 
the same time exerting all their strength at the poles and oars, 
they never fail in a note. The melodies are simple, but not 
- without expression, and all are pervaded with a mournful mo- 
notony which seems to have been caught from the Desert. 
There is generally an improvisatore in each boat's crew, who 
supplies an endless number of lines to the regular chorus of 
" hay-liaylee sah /" So far as I could understand our poet, 
there was not the least meaning or connection in his poetry, 
but he never failed in the rhythm. He sang, for instance : 
" Alexandrian ! " — then followed the chorus : " Hasten, 
three of you ! " — chorus again : " Hail, Sidi Ibrahim ! " and 
so on, for an hour at a time. On particular occasions, he add- 
ed pantomime, and the scene on our forward deck resembled a 
war-dance of the Blackfeet. The favorite pantomime is that 
of a man running into a hornet's nest. He stamps and cries, 
improvising all the while, the chorus seeking to drown his 
voice. He then throws off his mantle, cap, and sometimes his 
last garment, slapping his body to drive off the hornets, and 
howling with pain. The song winds up with a prolonged cry, 



81 



which only ceases when every lung is emptied. Even when 
most mirthfully inclined, and roaring in ecstasy over some sil- 
ly joke, our men always laughed in accord. So sound and 
hearty were their cachinnatory choruses, that we involuntarily 
laughed with them. 

A crowd of donkeys, ready saddled, awaited us on the bank, 
and the boys began to fight before our boat was moored. We 
chose three unpainted animals, so large that our feet were at 
least three inches from the ground, and set off on a gallop for 
Siout, which is about a mile and a half from the river. Its 
fifteen tall, white minarets rose before us, against the back- 
ground of the mountain, and the handsome front of the palace 
of Ismail Pasha shone through the dark green of its embosom- 
ing acacias. The road follows the course of a dam, built to 
retain the waters of the inundation, and is shaded with palms, 
sycamores and mimosas. On either side we looked down upon 
fields of clover, so green, juicy and June-like that I was 
tempted to jump from my donkey and take a roll therein. 
Where the ground was still damp the Arabs were ploughing 
with camels, and sowhig wheat on the moist, fat loam. We 
crossed a bridge and entered the court of justice, one of the 
most charmingly clean and shady spots in Egypt. The town, 
which is built of sun-dried bricks, whose muddy hue is some- 
what relieved by the whitewashed mosques and minarets, is 
astonishingly clean in every part. The people themselves ap- 
peared to be orderly, intelligent and amiable. 

The tombs of the City of Wolves, the ancient Lycopolis, 

are in the eastern front of the mountain overhanging the city. 

We rode to the Stabl Antar, the principal one, and then 

climbed to the summit. The tombs are much larger than 

4* 



82 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

those of Beni-Hassan, but have been almost ruined by the 
modern Egyptians. The enormous square pillars which filled 
their halls have been shattered down for lime, and only frag- 
ments of the capitals still hang from the ceilings of solid rock. 
The sculptures and hieroglyphics, which are here not painted 
but sculptured in intaglio, are also greatly defaced. The 
second tomb ealled by the Arabs Stall Kamam (Pigeon Sta- 
ble), retains its grand doorway, which has on each side the co- 
lossal figure of an ancient king. The sand around its mouth 
is filled with fragments of mummied wolves, and on our way 
up the mountain we scared one of their descendants from his 
lair in a solitary tomb. The Stall Hamam is about sixty 
feet square by forty in height, and in its rough and ruined as- 
pect is more impressive than the more chaste and elegant 
chambers of Beni-Hassan. The view of the plain of Siout, 
seen through its entrance, has a truly magical effect. From 
the gray twilight of the hall in which you stand, the green of 
the fields, the purple of the distant mountains, and the blue 
of the sky, dazzle your eye as if tinged with the broken rays 
of a prism. 

From the summit of the mountain, which we reached by 
scaling a crevice in its white cliffs, we overlooked a more beau- 
iiful landscape than that seen from the Pyramid. In the 
north, beyond the spires of Manfalout and the crags of Abou- 
fayda, we counted the long palm-groves, receding behind one 
another to the yellow shore of the Desert ; in front, the wind- 
ing Nile and the Arabian Mountains; southward, a sea of 
wheat and clover here deepening into dark emerald, there pal- 
ing into gold, according to the degree of moisture in the soil, 
and ceasing only because the eye refused to follow ; whilo be- 



SIODT A BATH. 83 

hind us, over the desert hills, wound the track of the yearly 
caravan from Dar-Fur and Kordofan. Our Arab guide point- 
ed out a sandy plain, behind the cemetery of the Mamelukes, 
which lay at our feet, as the campiug-ground of the caravan, 
and tried to tell us how many thousand camels were assembled 
there. As we looked upon the superb plain, teeming with its 
glory of vegetable life and enlivened by the songs of the Arab 
ploughmen, a funeral procession came from the city and passed 
slowly to the burying-ground, accompanied by the dismal 
howling of a band of women. We went below and rode be- 
tween the whitewashed domes covering the graves of the 
Mamelukes. The place was bright, clean and cheerful, in 
comparison with the other Arab burying-grounds we had seen. 
The grove which shades its northern wall stretches for more 
than a mile along the edge of the Desert — a picturesque ave- 
nue of palms, sycamores, fragrant acacias, mimosas and acan- 
thus. The air around Siout is pregnant with the rich odor of 
the yellow mimosa-flowers, and one becomes exhilarated by 
breathing it. 

The city has handsome bazaars and a large bath, built by 
Mohammed Bey Defterdar, the savage son-in-law of Mohammed 
Ali. The halls are spacious, supported by granite columns, 
and paved with marble. Little threads of water, scarcely visi- 
ble in the dim, steamy atmosphere, shoot upward from the 
stone tanks, around which a dozen brown figures lie stretched 
in the lazy beatitude of the bath. I was given over to two 
Arabs, who scrubbed me to desperation, plunged me twice over 
head and ears in a tank of scalding water, and then placed me 
under a cold douche. "When the whole process, which occupied 
more than half an hour, was over, a cup of coffee and a pipe 



84 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

were brought to me as I lay stretched, out on the divan, while 
another attendant commenced a course of dislocation, twisting 
and cracking all my joints and pressing violently with both 
hands on my breast. Singularly enough, this removed the lan- 
guor occasioned by so much hot water, and gave a wonderful 
elasticity to the frame. I walked out as if shod with the wings 
of Mercury, and as I rode back to our boat, congratulated my 
donkey on the airy lightness of his load. 



The Cleopatra. 

CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE ON THE NILE. 

Independence of Nile Life — The Dahabiyeh — Our Servants— Our Residence— Our Man- 
ner of Living— The Climate — The Natives— Costume— Our Sunset Repose— My 
Friend— A Sensuous Life Defended. 

"The life thou seek'st 

Thou'lt find beside the Eternal Nile." — Mooee's Alcipuron. 

We hear inuch said by tourists who have visited Egypt, 
concerning the comparative pains and pleasures of life on the 
Nile, and their decisions are as various as their individual 
characters. Four out of every five eomplain of the monotony 
and tedium of the voyage, and pour forth touching lamenta- 
tions over the annoyance of rats and cockroaches, the impossi- 
bility of procuring beef-steak, or the difficulty of shooting 
crocodiles. Some of them are wholly impermeable to the influ- 



86 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ences of the climate, scenery and ruins of Egypt, and carry to 
the Nubian frontier the airs of Broadway or Bond-street. I 
have heard such a one say : " This seeing the Nile is a nice 
thing to have gotten over, but it is a great bore while you are 
about it." Such is the spirit of those travelling snobs (of all 
nations), by some of whom sacred Egypt is profaned every 
winter. They are unworthy to behold the glories of the Nile, 
Rnd if I had the management of Society, they never should. 
A. palm-tree is to them a good post to shoot a pigeon from ; 
Dendera is a " rum old concern," and a crocodile is better than 
Karnak. 

There are a few, however, who will acknowledge the truth 
of the picture which follows, and which was written in the cabin 
of the Cleopatra, immediately after our arrival in Upper Egypt. 
As it is a faithful transcript of my Nilotic life, I have devi- 
ated from the regular course of my narrative, in order to give 
it without change : — 

The Nile is the Paradise of Travel. I thought I had 
already fathomed all the depths of enjoyment which the travel- 
ler's restless life could reach — enjoyment more varied and 
exciting, but far less serene and enduring than that of a quiet 
home — but here I have reached a fountain too pure and power- 
ful to be exhausted. I never before experienced such a 
thorough deliverance from all the petty annoyances of travel in 
other lands, such perfect contentment of spirit, such entire 
abandonment to the best influences of nature. Every day opens 
with a jubilate, and closes with a thanksgiving. If such a 
balm and blessing as this life has been to me, thus far, can be 
felt twice in one's existence, there must be another Nile some- 
where in the world. 



INDEPENDENCE OF NILE LIFE. 87 

Other travellers undoubtedly make other experiences and 
take away other impressions. I can even conceive circumstan- 
ces which would almost destroy the pleasure of the journey. 
The same exquisitely sensitive temperament which in our case 
has not been disturbed by a single untoward incident, might 
easily be kept in a state of constant derangement by an unsym- 
pathetic companion, a cheating dragoman, or a fractious crew. 
There are also many trifliug desagremens, inseparable from 
life in Egypt, which some would consider a source of annoy- 
ance ; but as we find fewer than we were prepared to meet, we 
are not troubled thereby. Our enjoyment springs from causes 
so few and simple, that I scarcely know how to make them 
suflB.ce for the effect, to those who have never visited the Nile. 
It may be interesting to such to be made acquainted with our 
manner of liviug, in detail. 

In the first place, we are as independent of all organized 
Governments as a ship on the open sea. (The Arabs call the 
Nile El balir, " the sea.") "We are on board our own char- 
tered vessel, which must go where we list, the captain and 
sailors being strictly bound to obey us. We sail under nation- 
al colors, make our own laws for the time being, are ourselves 
the only censors over our speech and conduct, and shall have 
no communication with the authorities on shore, unless our 
subjects rebel. Of this we have no fear, for we commenced 
by maintaining strict discipline, and as we make no unreason- 
able demands, are always cheerfully obeyed. Indeed, the 
most complete harmony exists between the rulers and the ruled, 
and though our government is the purest form of despotism, 
we flatter ourselves that it is better managed than that of the 
Model- Republic, 



88 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Our territory, to be sure, is not very extensive. The GleO' 
patra is a dahabiyeh, seventy feet long by ten broad. She 
has two short masts in the bow and stern, the first upholding 
the trinkeet, a lateen sail nearly seventy feet in length. The 
latter carries the belikon, a small sail, and the American col- 
ors. The narrow space around the foremast belongs to the crew, 
who cook their meals in a small brick furnace, and sit on the 
gunwale, beating a drum and tambourine and singing for hours 
in interminable choruses, when the wind blows fair. If there 
is no wind, half of them are on shore, tugging us slowly along 
the banks with a long tow-rope, and singing all day long : u Aya 
ham'im — aya hamam / " If we strike on a sand-bank, they 
jump into the river and put their shoulders against the hull, 
singing : " hay-haylee sah ! " If the current is slow, they ship 
the oars and pull us up stream, singing so complicated a refrain 
that it is impossible to write it with other than Arabic charac- 
ters. There are eight men and a boy, besides our stately rai's, 
Hassan Abd el-Sadek, and the swarthy pilot, who greets us 
every morning with a whole round of Arabic salutations. 

Against an upright pole which occupies the place of a main- 
mast, stands our kitchen, a high wooden box, with three fur- 
naces. Here our cook, Salame, may be seen at all times, with 
the cowl of a blue capote drawn over his turban, preparing the 
marvellous dishes, wherein his delight is not less than ours. 
Salame, like a skilful artist, as he is, husbands his resources, 
and each day astonishes us with new preparations, so that, out 
of few materials, he has attained the grand climax of all art — 
variety in unity. Achmet, my faithful dragoman, has his sta- 
tion here, and keeps one eye on the vessel and one on the kitchen, 
while between the two he does not relax his protecting care for 



THE rIABIN. 8C 

us. The approach to the cabin is flanked by our provision chests, 
which will also serve as a breastwork in case of foreign aggres- 
sion. A huge filter-jar of porous earthenware stands against 
the back of the kitchen. We keep our fresh butter and vege- 
tables in a box under it, where the sweet Nile-water drips cool 
and clear into an earthen basin. Our bread and vegetables, in 
an open basket of palm-blades, are suspended beside it, and the 
roof of the cabin supports our poultry-yard and pigeon-house. 
Sometimes (but not often) a leg of mutton may be seen hang- 
ing from the ridge-pole, which extends over the deck as a sup- 
port to the awning. 

The cabin, or Mansion of the Executive Powers, is about 
twenty-five feet long. Its floor is two feet below the deck, and 
its ceiling five feet above, so that we are not cramped or crowd- 
ed in any particular. Before the entrance is a sort of portico, 
with a broad, cushioned seat on each side, and side-awnings to 
shut out the sun. This place is devoted to pipes and medita- 
tion. We throw up the awnings, let the light pour in on all 
sides, and look out on the desert mountains while we inhale the 
incense of the East. Our own main cabin is about ten feet 
long, and newly painted of a brilliant blue color. A broad 
divan, with cushions, extends along each side, serving as a sofa 
by day, and a bed by night. There are windows, blinds, and 
a canvas cover at the sides, so that we can regulate our light 
and air as we choose. In the middle of the cabin is our table 
and two camp stools, while shawls, capotes, pistols, sabre and 
gun are suspended from the walls. A little door at the further 
end opens into a wash-room, beyond which is a smaller cabin 
with beds, which we have alloted to Achmet's use. Our cook 
sleeps on deck, with his head against the provision chest. The 



90 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

rais and pilot sleep on the roof of our cabin, where the latter 
sits all day, holding the long arm of the rudder, which projects 
forward over the cabin from the high end of the stern. 

Our manner of life is simple, and might even be called 
monotonous, but we have never found the greatest variety of 
landscape and incident so thoroughly enjoyable. The scenery 
of the Nile, thus far, scarcely changes from day to day, in its 
forms and colors, but only in their disposition with regard to 
each other. The shores are either palm-groves, fields of cane 
and dourra, young wheat, or patches of bare sand, blown out 
from the desert. The villages are all the same agglomerations 
of mud-walls, the tombs of the Moslem saints are the same 
white ovens, and every individual camel and buffalo resembles 
its neighbor in picturesque ugliness. The Arabian and Libyan 
Mountains, now sweeping so far into the foreground that their 
yellow cliffs overhang the Nile, now receding into the violet 
haze of the horizon, exhibit little difference of height, hue, 
or geological formation. Every new scene is the turn of 
a kaleidoscope, in which the same objects are grouped in 
' other relations, yet always characterized by the most perfect 
harmony. These slight, yet ever-renewing changes, are to us 
a source of endless delight. Either from the pure atmosphere, 
the healthy life we lead, or the accordant tone of our spirits, 
we find ourselves unusually sensitive to all the slightest touches, 
the most minute rays of that grace and harmony which bathes 
every landscape in cloudless sunshine. The various groupings 
of the palms, the shifting of the blue evening shadows on the 
rose-hued mountain walls, the green of the wheat and sugar- 
cane, the windings of the great river, the alternations of wind and 
calm — each of these is enough to content us, and to give every 



MANNER OF LIVING. 91 

day a different charm from that which went before. We meet 
contrary winds, calms and sand-banks without losing our 
patience, and even our excitement in the swiftness and grace 
with which our vessel scuds before the north-wind is mingled 
with a regret that our journey is drawing so much the more 
swiftly to its close. A portion of the old Egyptian repose 
seems to be infused into our natures, and lately, when I saw 
my face in a mirror, I thought I perceived in its features some- 
thing of the patience and resignation of the Sphinx. 

Although, in order to enjoy this life as much as possible, 
we subject ourselves to no arbitrary rules, there is sufficient 
regularity in our manner of living. We rise before the sun, 
and after breathing the cool morning air half an hour, drink a 
cup of coffee and go ashore for a walk, unless the wind is very 
strong in our favor. My friend, who is an enthusiastic sports- 
man and an admirable shot, takes his fowling-piece, and I my 
sketch-book and pistols. We wander inland among the fields 
of wheat and dourra, course among the palms and acacias for 
game, or visit the villages of the Fellahs. The temperature, 
which is about 60° in the morning, rarely rises above 75°, so 
that we have every day three or four hours exercise in the mild 
and pure air. My friend always brings back from one to two 
dozen pigeons, while I, who practise with my pistol on such 
ignoble game as hawks and vultures, which are here hardly shy 
enough to shoot, can at the best but furnish a few wing fea 
thers to clean our pipes. 

It is advisable to go armed on these excursions, though 
there is no danger of open hostility on the part of the people. 
Certain neighborhoods, as that of Beni Hassan, are in bad 
repute, but the depredations of the inhabitants, who have been 
disarmed by the Government, are principally confined to thiev- 



92 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ing and other petty offences. On one occasion I fell in with a 
company of these people, who demanded my tarboosh, shoes 
and shawl, and would have taken them had I not been armed. 
In general, we have found the Fellahs very friendly and well 
disposed. They greet us on our morning walks with " Sala- 
mat / " and " Sabah el Kheyr ! " and frequently accompany us 
for miles. My friend's fowling-piece often brings around him 
all the men and boys of a village, who follow him as long as a 
pigeon is to be found on the palm-trees. The certainty of his 
shot excites their wonder. " Wallah ! " they cry ; " every 
time the Howadji fires, the bird drops." The fact of my wear- 
ing a tarboosh and white turban brings upon me much Arabic 
conversation, which is somewhat embarrassing, with my imper- 
fect knowledge of the language ; but a few words go a great 
way. The first day I adopted this head-dress (which is conve- 
nient and agreeable in every respect), the people saluted me 
with "good morning, Sidi !" (Sir, or Lord) instead of the 
usual " good morning, Howadji ! " (*. e. merchant, as the 
Franks are rather contemptuously designated by the Arabs). 

For this climate and this way of life, the Egyptian costume 
is undoubtedly much better than the European. It is light, 
cool, and does not impede the motion of the limbs. The turban 
thoroughly protects the head against the sun, and shades the 
eyes, while it obstructs the vision much less than a hat-brim. 
The broad silk shawl which holds up the baggy trowsers, shields 
the abdomen against changes of temperature and tends to pre- 
vent diarrhoea, which, besides ophthalmia, is the only ailment the 
traveller need fear. The latter disease may be avoided by 
bathing the face in cold water after walking or any exercise 
which induces perspiration. I have followed this plan, and 
though my eyes are exposed daily to the .full blaze of the sun, 



PROGRAMME OF A DAy's LIFE. 93 

<md them growing stronger and clearer. In fact, since leaving 
the invigorating camp-life of California, I have not felt the 
sensation of health so purely as now. The other day, to the 
great delight of our sailors and the inexhaustible merriment of 
my friend, I donned one of Achmet's dresses. Though the 
4hort Theban's flowing trowsers and embroidered jacket gave 
me the appearance of a strapping Turk, who had grown too 
fast for his garments, they were so easy and convenient in 
every respect, that I have decided to un-Frank myself for the 
remainder of the journey. 

But our day is not yet at an end. "We come on board 
about eleven o'clock, and find our breakfast ready for the table. 
The dishes are few, but well cooked, and just what a hungry 
man would desire — fowls, pigeons, eggs, rice, vegetables, fruit, 
the coarse but nourishing bread of the country, and the sweet 
water of the Nile, brought to a blush by an infusion of claret 
After breakfast we seat ourselves on the airy divans in front 
of the cabin, and quietly indulge in the luxury of a shebook, 
filled by Achmet's experienced hand, and a finjan of Turkish 
coffee. Then comes an hour's exercise in Arabic, after whicn 
we read guide-books, consult our maps, write letters, and occupy 
ourselves with various mysteries of our household, till the 
noonday heat is over. Dinner, which is served between four 
and five o'clock, is of the same materials as our breakfast, but 
differently arranged, and with the addition of soup. My friend 
avers that he no longer wonders why Esau sold his birthright, 
aow that he has tasted our pottage of Egyptian lentils. Coffee 
and pipes follow dinner, which is over with the first flush of 
sunset and the first premonition of the coolness and quiet of 
evening. 



&4 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL. AFRICA. 

We seat ourselves on deck, and drink to its fulness the 
balm of this indescribable' repose. The sun goes down behind 
the Libyan Desert in a broad glory of purple and rosy lights ; 
the Nile is calm and unviffied, the palms stand as if sculptured 
in jasper and malachite, and the torn and ragged sides of the 
Arabian Mountains, pouring through a hundred fissures thp 
sand of the plains above, burn with a deep crimson lustre, a& 
if smouldering from some inward fire. The splendor soon 
passes off and they stand for some minutes in dead, ashy pale- 
ness. The sunset has now deepened into orange, in the midst 
of which a large planet shines whiter than the moon. A 
second glow falls upon the mountains, and this time of a pale, 
but intense yellow hue, which gives them the effect of a trans- 
parent painting. The palm-groves are dark below and the sky 
dark behind them ; they alone, the symbols of perpetual deso- 
lation, are transfigured by the magical illumination. Scarcely 
a sound disturbs the solemn magnificence of the hour. Even 
our full-throated Arabs are silent, and if a wave gurgles 
against the prow, it slides softly back into the river, as if re- 
buked for the venture. We speak but little, and then mostly 
in echoes of each other's thoughts. " This is more than mere 
enjoyment of Nature," said my friend, on such an evening : 
" it is worship." 

Speaking of my friend, it is no more than just that I 
should confess how much of the luck of this Nile voyage is 
owing to him, and therein may be the secret of my complete 
satisfaction and the secret of the disappointment of others. It 
is more easy and yet more difficult for persons to harmonize 
while travelling, than when at home. By this I mean, that 
uien of kindred natures and aims find each other more readily 



MY COMRADE. 95 

and confide in each otter more freely, while the least jarring 
element rapidly drives others further and further apart. No 
confessional so completely reveals the whole man as the com- 
panionship of travel. It is not possible to wear the conven- 
tional masks of Society, and one repulsive feature is often 
enough to neutralize many really good qualities. On the other 
hand, a congeniality of soul and temperament speedily ripens 
into the firmest friendship and doubles every pleasure which is 
mutually enjoyed. My companion widely differs from me in 
age, in station, and in his experiences of life ; but to one of 
those open, honest and loving natures which are often found in 
his native Saxony, he unites a most warm and thorough appre- 
ciation of Beauty in Nature or Art. We harmonize to a mir- 
acle, and the parting with him at Assouan will be the sorest 
oang of my journey. 

My friend, the Howadji, in whose "Nile-Notes" the 
Egyptian, atmosphere is so perfectly reproduced, says that 
" Conscience falls asleep on the Nile." If by this he means 
that artificial quality which bigots and sectarians call Con- 
science, I quite agree with him, and do not blame the Nile for 
its soporific powers. But that simple faculty of the soul, na- 
tive to all men, which acts best when it acts unconsciously, 
and leads our passions and desires into right paths without 
seeming to lead them, is vastly strengthened by this quiet and 
healthy life. There is a cathedral-like solemnity in the air of 
Egypt; one feels the presence of the altar, and is a better 
man without his will. To those rendered misanthropic by 
disappointed ambition — mistrustful by betrayed confidence- 
despairing by unassuageable sorrow — let me repeat the motto 
which heads this chapter. 



06 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

I have endeavored to picture our mode of life as faithfully 
and minutely as possible, because it bears no resemblance to 
travel in any other part of the world. Into the neart of a 
barbarous continent and a barbarous land, we carry with us 
every desirable comfort and luxury. In no part of Europe or 
America could we be so thoroughly independent, without un- 
dergoing considerable privations, and wholly losing that sense 
of rest which is the greatest enjoyment of this journey. We 
are cut off from all communication with the great world of 
politics, merchandise and usury, and remember it only through 
the heart, not through the brain. We go ashore in the deli- 
cious mornings, breathe the elastic air, and wander through 
the palm-groves, as happy and care-free as two Adams in a 
Paradise without Eves. It is an episode which will flow for- 
ward in the under-currents of our natures through the rest of 
our lives, soothing and refreshing us whenever it rises to the 
surface. I do not reproach myself for this passive and sensu- 
ous existence. I give myself up to it unreservedly, and if 
some angular-souled utilitarian should come along and recom 
mend me to shake off my laziness, and learn the conjugations 
of Coptic verbs or the hieroglyphs of Kneph and Thoth, I 
should not take the pipe from my mouth to answer him. My 
friend sometimes laughingly addresses me with two lines of 
Hebel's quaint Allemanic poetry : 

" Ei soldi a Leben, junges Bluat, 
Desh. ish. -wohl fur a Thierle guat." 

(such a life, young blood, best befits an animal), but I tell him 
that the wisdom of the Black Forest won't answer for the 
Nile. If any one persists in forcing the application, I prefer 



OBSERVATION VS. DESCRIPTION. 97 

being called an animal to changing my present habits. An 
entire life so spent would be wretchedly aimless-, but a few 
months are in truth " sore labor's bath" to every wrung heart 
and overworked brain. 

I could say much more, but it requires no little effort to 
write three hours in a cabin, when the palms are rustling their 
tops outside, the larks singing in the meadows, and the odor of 
mimosa flowers breathing through the windows. To travel and 
write, is like inhaling and exhaling one's breath at the same 
moment. You take in impressions at every pore of the mind, 
and the process is so pleasant, that you sweat them out again 
most reluctantly. Lest I should overtake the remedy with 
the disease, and make to-day Labor, which should be Rest, 1 
shall throw down the pen, and mount yonder donkey, which 
stands patiently on the bank, waiting to carry me to Siout 
once more, before starting for Thebes. 



98 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTEE VIII, 

UPPER EGYPT. 

Calm — Mountains and Tombs — A Night Adventure in Ekhmin — Character of the 
Boatmen — Fair Wind — Pilgrims — Egyptian Agriculture— Sugar and Cotton— Grain 
— Sheep — Arrival at Kenneh — A Landscape — The Temple of Dendera — First Im- 
pressions of Egyptian Art — Portrait of Cleopatra — A Happy Meeting — We approach 
Thebes. 

Our men were ready at the appointed time, and precisely 
twenty-four hours after reaching the port of Siout we spread 
our sails for Kenneh, and exchanged a parting salute with the 
boat of a New York physician, which arrived some hours after 
us. The nosth wind, which had been Wowing freshly during 
the whole of our stay, failed us almost within sight of the port, 
and was followed by three days of breathless calm, during 
which time . we made about twelve miles a day, by towing. 
My friend and I spent half the time on shore, wandering in- 
land through the fields and making acquaintances in the vil- 
lages. We found such tours highly interesting and refreshing, 
but nevertheless always returned to our floating Castle of In- 
dolence, doubly delighted with its home-like cabin and lazy di- 
vans. Many of the villages in this region are built among the 
mounds of ancient cities, the names whereof are faithfully enu- 
merated in the guide-book, but as the cities themselves have 



MOUNTAINS, TOMBS AND RUINS. 99 

wholly disappeared, we were spared the necessity of seeking 
for their ruins. 

On the third night after leaving Siout, we passed the vil- 
lage of Glow el-Kebir, the ancient Antseopolis, whose beautiful 
temple has heen entirely destroyed during the last twenty-five 
years, partly washed away by the Nile and partly pulled down 
to furnish materials for the Pasha's palace at Siout. Near 
this the famous battle between Hercules and Antaeus is re- 
ported to have taken place. The fable of Antaeus drawing 
strength from the earth appears quite natural, after one has 
seen the fatness of the soil of Upper Egypt. We ran the 
gauntlet of Djebel Shekh Hereedee, a mountain similar to 
Aboufayda in form, but much more lofty and imposing. It 
has also its legend : A miraculous serpent, say the Arabs, has 
lived for centuries in its caverns, and possesses the power of 
healing diseases. All these mountains, on the eastern bank 
of the Nile, are pierced with tombs, and the openings are 
sometimes so frequent and so near to each other as to resem- 
ble a colonnade along the rocky crests. They rarely contain 
inscriptions, and many of them were inhabited by hermits and 
holy men, during the early ages of Christianity. At the most 
accessible points the Egyptians have commenced limestone 
quarries, and as they are more concerned in preserving piastres 
than tombs, their venerable ancestors are dislodged without 
scruple. Whoever is interested in Egyptian antiquities, 
should not postpone his visit longer. Not only Turks, but 
Europeans are engaged in the work of demolition, and the very 
antiquarians who profess the greatest enthusiasm for these 
monuments, are ruthless Vandals towards them when they 
have the power. 



100 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA, 

We dashed past the mountain of Shekh Hereedee in gal- 
lant style, and the same night, after dusk, reached Ekhmin, 
the ancient Panopolis. This "was one of the oldest cities in 
Egypt, and dedicated to the Phallic worship, whose first sym- 
bol, the obelisk, has now a purely monumental significance. 
A few remnants of this singular ancient faith appear to be re- 
tained among the modern inhabitants of Ekhmin, but only in 
the grossest superstitions, and without reference to the ab- 
stract creative principle typified by the Phallic emblems. 
The early Egyptians surrounded with mystery and honored 
with all religious solemnity what they regarded a3 the highest 
human miracle wrought by the power of their gods, and in a 
philosophical point of view, there is no branch of their com- 
plex faith more interesting than this. 

As we sat on the bank in the moonlight, quietly smoking 
our pipes, the howling of a company of dervishes sounded from 
the town, whose walls are a few hundred paces distant from 
the river. We inquired of the guard whether a Frank dare 
visit them. He could not tell, but offered to accompany me 
and try to procure an entrance. I took Achmet and two of 
our sailors, donned a Bedouin capote, and set out in search of 
the dervishes. The principal gate of the town was closed, and 
my men battered it vainly with their clubs, to rouse the guard 
We wandered for some time among the mounds of Panopolis, 
stumbling over blocks of marble and granite, under palms 
eighty feet high, standing clear and silvery in the moonlight. 
At last, the clamor of the wolfish dogs we waked up on the 
road, brought us one of the watchers outside of the walls, 
whom we requested to admit us into the city. He replied 
that this could not be done. " But," said Achmet, "here is 



A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 101 

an Effendi who has just arrived, and must visit the mollahs 
to-night ; admit him and fear nothing." The men thereupon 
conducted us to another gate and threw a few pebbles against 
the window above it. A woman's voice replied, and presently 
the bolts were undrawn and we entered. By this time the 
dervishes had ceased their bowlings, and every thing was as 
still as death. We walked for half an hour through the de- 
serted streets, visited the niosques and public buildings, and 
heard no sound but our own steps. It was a strangely inter- 
esting promenade, The Arabs, armed with clubs, carried a 
paper lantern, which flickered redly on the arches and courts 
we passed through. My trusty Theban walked by my side, 
and took all possible trouble to find the retreat of the der- 
vishes — but in vain. We passed out through the gate, which 
was instantly locked behind us, and had barely reached our 
vessel, when the unearthly song of the Moslem priests, louder 
and wilder than ever, came to our ears. 

The prejudice of the Mohammedans against the Christians 
is wearing away with their familiarity with the Frank dress 
and their adoption of Frankisk vices. The Prophet's injunc- 
tion against wine is heeded by few of his followers, or avoided 
by drinking araJcee, a liquor distilled from dates and often fla- 
vored with hemp. Their conscience is generally satisfied with 
a pilgrimage to Mecca and the daily performance of the pre- 
scribed prayers, though the latter is often neglected. All of 
my sailors were very punctual in this respect, spreading their 
carpets on the forward deck, and occupying an hour or two 
every day with genuflexions, prostrations, and salutations to- 
ward Mecca, the direction of which they never lost, notwith- 
standing the windings of the Nile. In the cathedrals of Chris* 



102 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

tian Europe I have often seen pantomimes quite as unneces» 
sary, performed with less apparent reverence. The people of 
Egypt are fully as honest and well-disposed as the greater 
part of the Italian peasantry. They sometimes deceive in 
small things, and are inclined to take trifling advantages, but 
that is the natural result of living under a government whose 
only rule is force, and which does not even hesitate to use 
fraud. Their good humor is inexhaustible. A single friendly 
word wins them, and even a little severity awakes no lasting 
feeling of revenge. I should much rather trust myself alone 
among the Egyptian Fellahs, than among the peasants of the 
Campagna, or the boors of Carinthia. Notwithstanding our 
men had daily opportunities of plundering us, we never missed 
a single article. We frequently went ashore with our drago- 
man, leaving every thing in the cabin exposed, and especially 
such articles as tobacco, shot, dates, &c, which would most 
tempt an Arab, yet our confidence was never betrayed. We 
often heard complaints from travellers in other boats, but I 
am satisfied that any one who will enforce obedience at the 
start, and thereafter give none but just and reasonable com- 
mands, need have no difiiculty with his crew. 

The next morning, the wind being light, we walked for- 
ward to El Menschieh, a town about nine miles distant from 
Ekhmin. It was market-day, and the bazaar was crowded 
with the countrymen, who had brought their stock of grain, 
sugar-cane and vegetables. The men were taller and more 
muscular than in Lower Egypt, and were evidently descended 
from a more intelligent and energetic stock. They looked at 
us curiously, but with a sort of friendly interest, and cour- 
teously made way for us as we passed through the narrow ba- 



EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE. 103 

zaar. In the afternoon the wind increased to a small gale, and 
bore us rapidly past Gebel Tookk to the city of Girgeh. so 
named in Coptic times from the Christian saint, George. 
Like Manfalont, it has been half washed away by the Nile, 
and two lofty minarets were hanging on the brink of the slip- 
pery bank, awaiting their turn to fall. About twelve miles 
from Gngeh, in the Libyan Desert, are the ruins of Abydus, 
now covered by the sand, except the top of the portico and 
roof of the temple-palace of Sesostris, and part of the temple 
of Osiris. We held a council whether we should waste the 
favorable wind or miss Abydus, and the testimony of Achmet, 
who had visited the ruins, having been taken, we chose the 
latter alternative. By this time Girgeh was nearly out of 
sight, and we comforted ourselves with the hope of soon see- 
ing Dendera. 

The pilgrims to Mecca, by the Kenneh and Kosseir route, 
were on their return, and we met a number of boats, crowded 
with them, on their way to Cairo from the former place. 
Most of the boats carried the red flag, with the star and cres- 
cent. On the morning after leaving Girgeh, we took a long 
stroll through the fields of Farshoot, which is, after Siout, the 
richest agricultural district of Upper Egypt. An excellent 
system of irrigation, by means of canals, is kept up, and the 
result shows what might be made of Egypt, were its great nat- 
ural resources rightly employed. The Nile offers a perpetual 
fountain of plenty and prosperity, and its long valley, from 
Nubia to the sea, would become, in other hands, the garden of 
the world. So rich and pregnant a soil I have never seen. 
Here, side by side, flourish wheat, maize, cotton, sugar-cane, 
indigo, hemp, rice, dourra, tobacco, olives, dates, oranges, and 



104 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the vegetables and fruits of nearly every climate. The wheat, 
which, in November, we found young and green, would in 
March be ripe for the sickle, and the people were cutting and 
threshing fields of dourra, which they had planted towards the 
end of summer. Except where the broad meadows are first re- 
claimed -from the rank, tufted grass which has taken posses- 
sion of them, the wheat is sowed upon the ground, and then 
ploughed in by a sort of crooked wooden beam, shod with iron, 
and drawn by two camels or buffaloes. I saw no instance in 
which the soil was manured. The yearly deposit made by the 
bountiful river seems to be sufficient. The natives, it is true, 
possess immense numbers of pigeons, and every village is 
adorned with towers, rising above the mud huts like the py- 
lons of temples, and inhabited by these birds. The manure 
collected from them is said to be used, but probably only in 
the culture of melons, cucumbers, and other like vegetables 
with which the gardens are stocked. 

The fields of sugar-cane about Farshoot were the richest I 
saw in Egypt. Near the village, which is three miles from the 
Nile, there is a steam sugar-refinery, established by Ibrahim 
Pasha, who seems to have devoted much attention to the cul- 
ture of cane, with a view to his own profit. There are several 
of these manufactories along the Nile, and the most of them 
were in full operation, as we passed. At Radainoon, between 
Miuyeh and Siout, there is a large manufactory, where the 
common coarse sugar made in the Fellah villages is refined and 
sent to Cairo. We made use of this sugar in our household, 
and found it to be of excellent quality, though coarser than 
that of the American manufactories. The culture of cotton 
has not been so successful. The large and handsome manufac- 



VEGETABLES AND GRAIN. 105 

fcory built at Kenneh, is no longer in operation, and the fields 
which we saw there, had a forlorn, neglected appearance. The 
plants grow luxuriantly, and the cotton is of fine quality, but 
the pods are small and not very abundant. About Siout, and 
in Middle and Lower Egypt, we saw many fields of indigo, 
which is said to thrive well. Peas, beans and lentils are cul- 
tivated to a great extent, and form an important item of the 
food of the inhabitants. The only vegetables we could procure 
for our kitchen, were onions, radishes, lettuce and spinage. 
The Arabs are very fond of the tops of radishes, and eat them 
with as much relish as their donkeys. 

One of the principal staples of Egypt is the dourra (kolcus 
sorghum), which resembles the zea (maize) in many respects 
In appearance, it is very like broom-corn, but instead of 
the long, loose panicle of red seeds, is topped by a compact cone 
of grains, smaller than those of maize, but resembling them in 
form and taste. The stalks are from ten to fifteen feet high, 
and the beads frequently contain as much substance a3 two ears 
of maize. It is planted in close rows, and when ripe is cut by 
the hand w T ith a short sickle, after which the heads are taken 
off and threshed separately. The grain is fed to horses, don- 
keys and fowls, and in Upper Egypt is used almost universally 
for bread. It is of course very imperfectly ground, and unbolt- 
ed, and the bread is coarse and dark, though nourishing. In 
the Middle and Southern States of America this grain would 
thrive well and might be introduced with advantage. 

The plains of coarse, wiry grass (half eh), which in many 

points on the Nile show plainly the neglect of the inhabitants, 

who by a year's labor might convert them into blooming fields, 

are devoted to the pasturage of large herds of sheep, and goats, 

5* 



106 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and sometimes droves of buffaloes. The sheep are all black or 
dark-brown, and their trashy heads remind one of terriers, 
The wool is rather coarse, and when roughly spun and woven 
by the Arabs, in its natural color, forms the mantle, something 
like a Spanish poncho, which is usually the Fellah's only gar- 
ment. The mutton, almost the only meat to be found, is gen- 
erally lean, and brings a high price, considering the abundance 
of sheep. The flesh of buffaloes is eaten by the Arabs, but is 
too tough, and has too rank a flavor, for Christian stomachs. 
The goats are beautiful animals, with heads as slender and 
delicate as those of gazelles. They have short, black horns, 
curving downward — long, silky ears, and a peculiarly mild and 
friendly expression of countenance. We had no difficulty in 
procuring milk in the villages, and sometimes fresh butter, 
which was more agreeable to the taste than the sight. The mode 
of churning is not calculated to excite one's appetite. The 
milk is tied up in a goat's skin, and suspended by a rope to 
the branch of a tree. One of the Arab housewives (who are 
all astonishingly ugly and filthy) then stations herself on one 
side, and propels it backward and forward till the process is 
completed. The cheese of the country resembles a mixture of 
sand and slacked lime, and has an abomirable flavor. 

Leaving Farshoot, we swept rapidly past Haou, the ancient 
Diospolis jparva, or Little Thebes, of which nothing is left but 
some heaps of dirt, sculptured fragments, and the tomb of a 
certain Dionysius, son of a certain Ptolemy. The course of 
the mountains, which follow the Nile, is here nearly east and 
west, as the river makes a long curve to the eastward on ap- 
proaching Kenneh. The valley is inclosed within narrower 
bounds, and the Arabian Mountains on the north, shooting out 



107 



into bold promontories from the main chain, sometimes rise 
from the water's edge in bluffs many hundred feet in height. 
The good wind, which had so befriended us for three days, fol- 
lowed us all night, and when we awoke on the morning of De- 
cember 4th, our vessel lay at anchor in the port of Kenneh, 
having beaten by four hours the boat of our American friend, 
which was reputed to be one of the swiftest on the river. 

Kenneh, which lies about a mile east of the river, is cele- 
brated for the manufacture of porous water-jars, and is an infe- 
rior mart of trade with Persia and India, by means of Kosseir, 
on the Red Sea, one hundred and twenty miles distant. The 
town is large, but mean in aspect, and does not offer a single 
object of interest. It lies in the centre of a broad plain. We 
rode through the bazaars, which were tolerably well stocked 
and crowded with hadji, or pilgrims of Mecca. My friend, 
who wished to make a flag of the Saxe-Coburg colors, for his 
return voyage, tried in vain to procure a piece of green cotton 
cloth. Every other color was to be had but green, which, as 
the sacred hue, worn only by the descendants of Mohammed, 
was nowhere to be found. He was finally obliged to buy a 
piece of white stuff and have it specially dyed. It came back 
the same evening, precisely the color of the Shereef of Mecca's 
turban. 

On the western bank of the Nile, opposite Kenneh, is the 
site of the city of Tentyra, famed for its temple of Athor. 
It is now called Dendera, from the modern Arab village. 
After breakfast, we shipped ourselves and our donkeys across 
the Nile, and rode off in high excitement, to make our first 
acquaintance with Egyptian temple? The path led through a 
palm grove, which in richness and Deauty rivalled those of the 



108 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Mexican tierra caliente. The lofty shafts of the date and the 
vaulted foliage of the dotim-palm, blended in the most pictu- 
resque groupage, contrasted with the lace-like texture of the 
flowering mimosa, and the cloudy boughs of a kind of gray cy- 
press. The turf under the trees was soft and green, and between 
the slim trunks we looked over the plain, to the Libyan Moun- 
tains — a long train of rosy lights and violet shadows. Out of 
this lovely wood we passed between magnificent fields of dourra 
and the castor-oil bean, fifteen feet in height, to a dyke which 
crossed the meadows to Dendera. The leagues of rank grass on 
our right rolled away to the Desert in shining billows, and the 
fresh west-wind wrapped us in a bath of intoxicating odors. In 
the midst of this green and peaceful plain rose the earthy 
mounds of Tentyra, and the portico of the temple, almost buried 
beneath them, stood like a beacon, marking the boundary of the 
Desert. 

We galloped our little animals along the dyke, over heaps 
of dirt and broken bricks, among which a number of Arabs 
were burrowing for nitrous earth, and dismounted at a small 
pylon, which stands two or three hundred paces in front of the 
temple. The huge jambs of sandstone, covered with sharply 
cut hieroglyphics and figures of the Egyptian gods, and sur- 
mounted by a single block, bearing the mysterious winged globe 
and serpent, detained us but a moment, and we hurried down 
what was once the dromos of the temple, now represented by a 
double wall of unburnt bricks. The portico, more than a hundred 
feet in length, and .supported by six columns, united by screens 
of masonry, no stone of which, or of the columns themselves, is 
unsculptured, is massive and imposing, but struck me as be'ng 
too depressed to produce a very grand effect. What was my 



THE TEMPLE OP DENDERA. 109 

astonishment, on arriving at the entrance, to find that I had 
approached the temple on a level with half its height, and that 
the pavement of the portico was as far below as the scrolls of 
its cornice were above me. The six columns I had seen cover- 
ed three other rows, of six each, all adorned with the most 
elaborate sculpture and exhibiting traces of the brilliant color- 
ing which they once possessed. The entire temple, which is in 
an excellent state of preservation, except where the hand of the 
Coptic Christian has defaced its sculptures, was cleaned out by 
order of Mohammed Ali, and as all its chambers, as well as 
the roof of enormous sand-stone blocks, are entire, it is consid- 
ered one of the most complete relics of Egyptian art". 

I find my pen at fault, when I attempt to describe the im- 
pression produced by the splendid portico. The twenty-four 
columns, each of which is sixty feet in height, and eight feet in 
diameter, crowded upon a surface of one hundred feet by 
seventy, are oppressive in their grandeur. The dim light, 
admitted through the half closed front, which faces the north, 
spreads a mysterious gio^m around these mighty shafts, crown- 
ed with the fourfold visage of Athor, still rebuking the im- 
pious hands that have marred her solemn beauty. On the 
walls, between columns of hieroglyphics, and the cartouches of 
the Caesars and the Ptolemies, appear the principal Egyptian 
deities — the rigid Osiris, the stately Isis and the hawk-headed 
Orus. Around the bases of the columns spring the leaves of 
the sacred lotus, and the dark-blue ceiling is spangled with 
stars, between the wings of the divine emblem. The sculptures 
are all in raised relief, and there is no stone in the temple 
without them. I cannot explain to myself the unusual emotion 
f felt while contemplating this wonderful combination of a 



110 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

simple and sublime architectural style with the utmost elabo- 
ration of ornament. My blood pulsed fast and warm on my 
first view of the Roman Forum, but in Dendera I was so sad- 
dened and oppressed, that I scarcely dared speak for fear of 
betraying an unmanly weakness. My friend walked silently 
between the columns, with a face as rigidly sad as if he had 
just looked on the coffin of his nearest relative. Though such 
a mood was more painful than agreeable, it required some effort 
to leave the place, and after a stay of two hours, we still lin- 
gered in the portico and walked through the inner halls, under 
the spell of a fascination which we had hardly power to break. 
The portico opens into a hall, supported by six beautiful 
columns, of smaller proportions, and lighted by a square aper- 
ture in the solid roof. On either side are chambers connected 
with dim and lofty passages, and beyond is the sanctuary and 
various other apartments, which receive no light from without. 
We examined their sculptures by the aid of torches, and our 
Arab attendants kindled large fires of dry corn stalks, which 
cast a strong red light on the walls. The temple is devoted to 
Athor, the Egyptian Venus, and her image is everywhere seen, 
receiving the homage of her worshippers. Even the dark stair 
case, leading to the roof — up which we climbed over heaps of 
sand and rubbish — is decorated throughout with processions of 
symbolical figures. The drawing has little of that grotesque 
stiffness which I expected to find in Egyptian sculptures, and 
the execution is so admirable in its gradations of light and 
shade, as to resemble, at a little distance, a monochromatic 
painting. The antiquarians view these remains with little 
interest, as they date from the comparatively recent era of the 
Ptolemies, at which time sculpture and architecture were on 



THE PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA. Ill 

the decline. We, who had seen nothing else of the kind, 
were charmed with the grace and elegance of this sumptuous 
mode of decoration. Part of the temple was built by Cleopatra, 
whose portrait, with that of her son Csesarion, may still be 
seen on the exterior wall. The face of the colossal figure has 
been nearly destroyed, but there is a smaller one, whose soft, 
voluptuous outline is still sufficient evidence of the justness of 
her renown. The profile is exquisitely beautiful. The fore- 
head and nose approach the Greek standard, but the mouth is 
more roundly and delicately curved, and the chin and cheek 
are fuller. Were such an outline made plastic, were the blank 
face colored with a pale olive hue, through which should blush a 
faint, rosy tinge, lighted with bold black eyes and irradiated 
with the lightning of a passionate nature, it would even now 
" move the mighty hearts of captains and of kings." 

Around the temple and over the mounds of the ancient 
city are scattered the ruins of an Arab village which the in- 
habitants suddenly deserted, without any apparent reason, two 
or three years previous to our visit. Behind it, stretches the 
yellow sand of the Desert. The silence and aspect of deser- 
tion harmonize well with the spirit of the place, which would 
be much disturbed were one beset, as is usual in the Arab 
towns, by a gang of naked beggars and barking wolf-dogs. 
Besides the temple, there are also the remains of a chapel of 
Isis, with a pylon, erected by Augustus Cassar, and a small 
temple, nearly whelmed in the sand, supposed to be one of the 
mammeisi, or lying-in houses of the goddess Athor, who was 
honored in this form, on account of having given birth to the 
third member of the divine Triad. 

At sunset, we rode back from Dendera and set sail f*s 



112 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Thebes. In the evening, as we were sweeping along by moon- 
light, with a full wind, a large dafidbiyeh came floating down 
the stream. Achmet, who was on the look-out, saw the Amer- 
ican flag, and we hailed her. My delight was unbounded, to 
hear in reply the voice of my friend, Mr. Degen, of New York, 
who, with his lady and two American and English gentlemen, 
were returning from a voyage to Assouan. Both boats in- 
stantly made for the shore, and for the first time since leaving 
Germany I had the pleasure of seeing familiar faces. For the 
space of three hours I forgot Thebes and the north wind, but 
towards midnight we exchanged a parting salute of four guns 
and shook out the broad sails of the Cleopatra, who leaned her 
cheek to the waves and shot off like a sea-gull. I am sure she 
must have looked beautiful to my friends, as they stood on 
deck in the moonlight. 



ARRIVAL AT THEBES. 118 



CHAPTER IX. 

THEBES THE WESTERN BANK. 

Arriral at Thebes— Ground-Plan of the Remains— "We Cross to the Western Bank- 
Guides— The Temple of Goorneh— Valley of the Kings' Tombs— Belzoni's Tomb— 
The Races of Men — Vandalism of Antiquarians — Brace's Tomb — Memnon — The 
Grandfather of Sesostris — The Head of Amunoph — The Colossi of the Plain — 
Memnonian Music — The Statue of Remeses — The Memnonium — Beauty of Egyp- 
tian Art — More Scrambles among the Tombs — The Bats of the Assasseef— Medee- 
net Abou— Sculpturod Histories— The Great Court of the Temple— We return to 
Luxor. 

On the following evening, about nine o'clock, as my friend and 
I were taking our customary evening pipe in the cabin, our 
vessel suddenly stopped. The wind was still blowing, and I 
called to Achmet to know what was the matter. " We have 
reached Luxor," answered the Theban. We dropped the she- 
books, dashed out, up the bank, and saw, facing us in the 
brilliant moonlight, the grand colonnade of the temple, the 
solid wedges of the pylon, and the brother-obelisk of that 
which stands in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. The 
wide plain of Thebes stretched away on either hand, and the 
beautiful outlines of the three mountain ranges which inclose 
it, rose in the distance against the stars. We looked on the 
landscape a few moments, in silence. " Come," said my friend, 
at length, " this is enough for to-night. Let us not be too 



114 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hasty too exhaust what is in store for us." Se we returned to 
our cabin, closed the blinds, and arranged our pl&ns for best 
seeing, and best enjoying the wonders of the great Diospolis. 

Before commencing my recital, let me attempt to give an 
outline of the topography of Thebes. The courae of the Nile 
is here nearly north, dividing the site of the ancient city into 
two almost equal parts. On approaching it fyom Kenneh, the 
mountain of Goorneh, which abuts on the river, marks the 
commencement of the western division. This mountain, a 
range of naked limestone crags, terminating in a pyramidal 
peak, gradually recedes to the distance of three miles from the 
Nile, which it again approaches further douth. Nearly the 
whole of the curve, which might be called the western wall of 
the city, is pierced with tombs, among which are those of the 
queens, and the grand priestly vaults of the Assasseef. The 
Valley of the Kings' Tombs lies deep in the heart of the 
range, seven or eight miles from the river. After passing the 
corner of the mountain, the first ruin on the western bank is 
that of the temple-palace of Goorneh. More than a mile fur- 
ther, at the base of the mountain, is the Memnonium, or tem- 
ple of Remeses the Great, between which and the Nile the two 
Memnonian colossi are seated on the plain. Nearly two miles 
to the south of this is the great temple of Medeenet Abou, and 
the fragments of other edifices are met with, still further be- 
yond. On the eastern bank, nearly opposite Goorneh, stands 
the temple of Karnak, about half a mile from the river. 
Eight miles eastward, at the foot of the Arabian Mountains, is 
the small temple of Medamot, which, however, does not appear 
to have been included in the limits of Thebes. Luxor is di« 
ectly on the bank of the Nile, a mile and a half south of 



THE WESTERN BANK. 115 

Karnak, and the plain extends several miles beyond it, before 
reaching the isolated range, whose three conical peaks are the 
landmarks of Thebes to voyagers on the river. 

These distances convey an idea of the extent of the ancient 
city, but fail to represent the grand proportions of the land 
scape, so well fitted, in its simple and majestic outlines, to in- 
close the most wonderful structures the world has ever seen. 
The green expanse of the plain ; the airy coloring of the moun- 
tains ; the mild, solemn blue of the cloudless Egyptian sky ; — 
these are a part of Thebes, and inseparable from the remem- 
brance of its ruins. 

At sunrise we crossed to the western bank and moored our 
boat opposite Goorneh. It is advisable to commence with the 
Tombs, and close the inspection of that side with Medeenet 
Abou, reserving Karnak, the grandest of all, for the last. 
The most unimportant objects in Thebes are full of interest 
when seen first, whereas Karnak, once seen, fills one's thoughts 
to the exclusion of every thing else. There are Arab guides 
for each bank, who are quite familiar with all the principal 
points, and who have a quiet and unobtrusive way of directing 
the traveller, which I should be glad to see introduced into 
England and Italy. Our guide, old Achmet Gourgar, was a 
tall, lean gray-beard, who wore a white turban and long brown 
robe, and was most conscientious in his endeavors to satisfy us. 
We found several horses on the bank, ready saddled, and 
choosing two of the most promising, set off on a stirring gal- 
lop for the temple of Goorneh and the Valley of the Kings' 
Tombs, leaving Achmet to follow with our breakfast, and the 
Arab boys with their water bottles. 

The temple of Goorneh was built for the worship of Amun, 



116 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the Theban Jupiter, by Osirei and his son, Kenieses the Great, 
the supposed Sesostris, nearly fourteen hundred years before 
the Christian era. It is small, compared with the other ruins, 
but interesting from its rude and massive style, a remnant of 
the early period of Egyptian architecture. The two pylons in 
front of it are shattered down, and the dromos of sphinxes has 
entirely disappeared. The portico is supported by a single 
row of ten columns, which neither resemble each other, nor 
are separated by equal spaces. What is most singular, is the 
fact that notwithstanding this disproportion, which is also ob- 
servable in the doorways, the general effect is harmonious. 
We tried to fathom the secret of this, and found no other ex- 
planation than in the lowness of the building, and the rough 
granite blocks of which it is built. One seeks no proportion 
in a natural temple of rock, or a cirque of Druid stones. All 
that the eye requires is rude strength, with a certain approach 
to order. Tho effect produced by this temple is of a similar 
character, barring its historical interest. Its dimensions are 
too smali to be imposing, and I found, after passing it several 
times, that I valued it more as a feature in the landscape, 
than for its own sake. 

The sand and pebbles clattered under the hoofs of our 
horses, as we galloped up the gorge of Biban el Moholc, the 
" Gates of the Kings." The sides are perpendicular cliffs of 
yellow rock, which increased in height, the further we advanc- 
ed, and at last terminated in a sort of basin, shut in by preci- 
pices several hundred feet in height and broken into fantastic 
turrets, gables and pinnacles. The bottom is filled with huge 
heaps of sand and broken stones, left from the excavation 
of the tombs in the solid rock. There are twenty-one tombs 



BELZONl's TOMB. 117 

in this valley, more than half of which are of great extent and 
richly adorned with paintings and sculptures. Some have 
been filled with sand or otherwise injured by the occasional 
rains which visit this region, while a few are too small and 
plain to need visiting. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has numbered 
them all in red chalk at the entrances, which is very convenient 
to those who use his work on Egypt as a guide. I visited ten 
of the principal tombs, to the great delight of the old guide, 
who complained that travellers are frequently satisfied with 
four or five. The general arrangement is the same in all, but 
they differ greatly in extent and in the character of their deco- 
ration. 

The first we entered was the celebrated tomb of Remeses 
I., discovered by Belzoni. From the narrow entrance, a pre- 
cipitous staircase, the walls of which are covered with columns 
of hieroglyphics, descends to a depth of forty feet, where it 
strikes a horizontal passage leading to an oblong chamber, in 
which was formerly a deep pit, which Belzoni filled. This pit 
protected the entrance to the royal chamber, which was also 
carefully walled up. In the grace and freedom of the draw- 
ings, and the richness of their coloring, this tomb surpasses 
all others. The subjects represented are the victories of the 
monarch, while in the sepulchral chamber he is received into 
the presence of the gods. The limestone rock is covered with 
a fine coating of plaster, on which the figures were first drawn 
with red chalk, and afterwards carefully finished in colors. 
The reds, yellows, greens and blues are very brilliant, but 
seem to have been employed at random, the gods having faces 
sometimes of one color, sometimes of another. In the furthest 
chamber, which was left unfinished, the subjects are only 



118 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sketched in red chalk. Some of them have the loose and un- 
certain lines of a pupil's hand, over which one sees the bold 
and rapid corrections of the master. Many of the figures are 
remarkable for their strength and freedom of outline. I was 
greatly interested in a procession of men, representing the dif- 
ferent nations of the earth. The physical peculiarities of the 
Persian, the Jew and the Ethiopian are therein as distinctly 
marked as at the present day. The blacks are perfect coun- 
terparts of those I saw daily upon the Nile, and the noses of 
the Jews seem newly painted from originals in New York. 
So little diversity in the distinguishing features of the race, 
after the lapse of more than three thousand years, is a strong 
argument in favor of the new ethnological theory of the sepa- 
rate origin of different races. Whatever objections may be 
urged against this theory, the fact that the races have not ma- 
terially changed since the earliest historic times, is established 
by these Egyptian records, and we must either place the first 
appearance of Man upon the earth many thousands of years in 
advance of Bishop Usher's chronology, or adopt the conclusion 
of Morton and Agassiz. 

The burial-vault, where Belzoni found the alabaster sarco- 
phagus of the monarch, is a noble hall, thirty feet long by nearly 
twenty in breadth and height, with four massive pillars form- 
ing a, corridor on one side. In addition to the light of out 
torches, the Arabs kindled a large bonfire in the centre, which 
brought out in strong relief the sepulchral figures on the ceiling, 
painted in white on a ground of dark indigo hue. The pillars 
and walls of the vault glowed with the vivid variety of their 
colors, and the general effect was unspeakably rich and gor- 
geous. This tomb has already fallen a prey to worse plunderers 



bruce's tomb. 119 

than the Medes and Persians. Belzoni carried off the sarco- 
phagus, Champollion cut away the splendid jambs and architrave 
of the entrance to the lower chambers, and Lepsius has finished 
by splitting the pillars and appropriating their beautiful paint- 
ings for the Museum at Berlin. At one spot, where the latter 
has totally ruined a fine doorway, some indignant Frenchman 
has written in red chalk : "Meurtre commispar Lepsius.' 1 '' In 
all the tombs of Thebes, wherever you see the most flagrant 
and shameless spoliations, the guide says, "Lepsius." Who 
can blame the Arabs for wantonly defacing these precious 
monuments, when such an example is set them by the vanity 
of European antiquarians ? 

Bruce's Tomb, which extends for four hundred and twenty 
feet into the rock, is larger than Belzoni's, but not so fresh and 
brilliant. The main entrance slopes with a very gradual de- 
scent, and has on each side a number of small chambers and 
niches, apparently for mummies. The illustrations in these 
chambers are somewhat defaced, but very curious, on account 
of the light which they throw upon the domestic life of the 
Ancient Egyptians. They represent the slaughtering of oxen, 
the preparation of fowls for the table, the kneading and baking 
of bread and cakes, as well as the implements and utensils of 
the kitchen. In other places the field laborers are employed 
in leading the water of the Nile into canals, cutting clourra, 
threshing and carrying the grain into magazines. One room 
is filled with furniture, and the row of chairs around the 
base of the walls would not be out of place in the most elegant 
modern drawing-room. The Illustrated Catalogue of the Lon- 
don Exhibition contains few richer and more graceful patterns. 
In a chamber nearer the royal vault, two old, blind minstrels 



120 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

are seen, playing the harp in the presence of the King, whence 
this is sometimes called the Harper's Tomh. The pillars of 
the grand hall, like those of all the other tombs we visited, 
represent the monarch, after death, received into the presence 
of the gods — stately figures, with a calm and serious aspect, 
and lips, which, like those of the Sphinx, seemed closed upon 
some awful mystery. The absurdity of the coloring does not 
destroy this effect, and a blue-faced Isis, whose hard, black eye- 
ball stares from a brilliant white socket, is not less impressive 
than the same figure, cut in sandstone or granite. 

The delicacy and precision of the hieroglyphics, sculptured 
in intaglio, filled me with astonishment. In the tomb of Amunoph 
III., which I visited the next day, they resembled the ciphers 
engraved upon seals in their exquisite sharpness and regularity. 
Only the principal tombs, however, are thus beautified. In 
others the figures are either simply painted, or apparently 
sunken in the plaster, while it was yet fresh, by prepared pat- 
terns. The latter method accounts for the exact resemblance 
of long processions of figures, which would otherwise require a 
most marvellous skill on the part of the artist. In some un- 
finished chambers I detected plainly the traces of these pat- 
terns, where the outlines of the figures were blunt and the grain 
of the plaster bent, and not cut. The family likeness in the 
faces of the monarchs is also too striking, unfortunately, for us 
to accept them all as faithful portraits. They are all apparent- 
ly of the same age, and their attributes do not materially differ. 
This was probably a flattery on the part of the artists, or the 
effect of a royal vanity, which required to be portrayed in the 
freshness of youth and the full vigor of body and mind. The 
first faces I learned to recognize were those of Remeses II., 
the supposed Sesostris, and Amunoph III. 



AN ANCIENT TOMB. 121 

The tomb of Memnon, as it was called by the Romans, is 
the most elegant of all, in its proportions, and is as symmetri- 
cal as a Grecian temple. On the walls of the entrance are 
several inscriptions of Greek tourists, who visited it in the era 
of the Ptolemies, and spent their time in carving their names, 
like Americans nowadays. The huge granite sarcophagus in 
which the monarch's mummy was deposited, is broken, as are 
those of the other tombs, with a single exception. This is the 
tomb of Osirei I., the grandfather of Sesostris, and the oldest 
in the valley. I visited it by crawling through a hole barely 
large enough to admit my body, after which I slid on my back 
down a passage nearly choked with sand, to another hole, 
opening into the burial chamber. Here no impious hand had 
defaced the walls, but the figures were as perfect and the color- 
ing as brilliant as when first executed. In the centre stood 
an immense sarcophagus, of a single block of red granite, and 
the massive lid, which had been thrown off, lay beside it. The 
dust in the bottom gave out that peculiar mummy odor percep- 
tible in all the tombs, and in fact long after one has left them, 
for the clothes become saturated with it. The guide, delighted 
with having dragged me into that chamber, buried deep in the 
dumb heart of the mountain, said not a word, and from the 
awful stillness of the place and the phantasmagoric gleam of 
the wonderful figures on the walls, I could have imagined my- 
self a neophyte, on the threshold of the Osirian mysteries. 

We rode to the Western Valley, a still deeper and wider 
glen, containing tombs of the kings of the foreign dynasty of 
Atin-Re. We entered the two principal ones, but found the 
paintings rude and insignificant. There are many lateral pas- 
sages and chambers and in some places deep pits, along the 



122 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

edge of which we were obliged to crawl. In the last tomb a 
very long and steep staircase descends into the rock. As we 
were groping after the guide, I called to my friend to take care, 
as there was but a single step, after making a slip. The words 
were scarcely out of my mouth before I felt a tremendous 
thump, followed by a number of smaller ones, and found myself 
sitting in a heap of sand, at the bottom, some twenty or thirty 
feet below. Fortunately, I came off with but a few slight 
bruises. 

Returning to the temple of Goorneh, we took a path over 
the plain, through fields of wheat, lupins and lentils, to the two 
colossi, which we had already seen from a distance. These 
immense sitting figures, fifty-three feet above the plain, -which 
has buried their pedestals, overlook the site of vanished 
Thebes and assert the grandeur of which they and Karnak are 
the most striking remains. They were erected by Amunoph 
III., and though the faces are totally disfigured, the full, round, 
beautiful proportions of the colossal arms, shoulders and thighs 
do not belie the marvellous sweetness of the features which we 
still see in his tomb. Except the head of Antinous, I know 
of no ancient portrait so beautiful as Amunoph. The long and 
luxuriant hair, flowing in a hundred ringlets, the soft grace of 
the forehead, the mild serenity of the eye, the fine thin lines 
of the nostrils and the feminine tenderness of the full lips, 
triumph over the cramped rigidity of Egyptian sculpture, and 
charm you with the lightness and harmony of Greek art. In 
looking on that head, I cannot help thinking that the subject 
overpowered the artist, and led him to the threshold of a truer 
art. Amunoph, or Memnon, was a poet in soul, and it was 
meet that his statue should salute the rising sun with a sound 
like that of a harp-string. 



THE MUSIC OF MEMNON. 123 

Modern research has wholly annihilated this beautiful fable. 
Memnon now sounds at all hours of the day, and at the com- 
mand of all travellers who pay an Arab five piastres to climb 
into his lap. We engaged a vender of modern scarabei, who 
threw off his garments, hooked his fingers and toes into the 
cracks of the polished granite, and soon hailed us with " Sa- 
laam ! " from the knee of the statue. There is a certain stone 
on Memnon's lap, which, when sharply struck, gives out a clear 
metallic ring. Behind it is a small square aperture, invisible 
from below, where one of the priests no doubt stationed him- 
self to perform the daily miracle. Our Arab rapped on the 
arms and body of the statue, which had the usual dead sound 
of stone, and rendered the musical ring of the sun-smitten 
block more striking. An avenue of sphinxes once led from the 
colossi to a grand temple, the foundations of which we found 
about a quarte?" of a mile distant. On the way are the frag- 
ments of two other colossi, one of black granite. The enor- 
mous substructions of the temple and the pedestals of its col- 
umns have been sufficiently excavated to show what a superb 
edifice has been lost to the world. A crowd of troublesome 
Arabs, thrusting upon our attention newly baken cinerary urns, 
newly roasted antique wheat, and images of all kinds fresh 
from the maker's hand, disturbed our quiet examination of the 
ruins, and in order to escape their importunities, we rode to 
the Memnonium. 

This edifice, the temple-palace of Remeses the Great, is 
supposed to be the Memnonium, described by Strabo. It is 
built on a gentle rise of land at the foot, of the mountain, and 
looks eastward to the Nile and Luxor. The grand stone, py- 
lon which stands at the entrance of its former avenue of 



124 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sphinxes has been half levelled by the fury of the Persian con- 
querors, and the colossal granite statue of Remeses, in the first 
court of the temple, now lies in enormous fragments around its 
pedestal. Mere dimensions give no idea of this immense 
mass, the weight of which, when entire, was nearly nine hun- 
dred tons. How poor and trifling appear the modern statues 
which we call colossal, when measured with this, one of whose 
toes is a yard in length; and how futile the appliances of 
modern art, when directed to its transportation for a distance 
of one hundred and fifty miles ! The architrave at each end 
of the court was upheld hy four caryatides, thirty feet in height. 
Though much defaced^ they are still standing, but are dwarfed 
by the mighty limbs of Remeses. It is difficult to account for 
the means by which the colossus was broken. There are no 
marks of any instruments which could have forced such a mass 
asunder, and the only plausible conjecture I have heard is, 
that the stone must have been subjected to an intense heat and 
afterwards to the action of water. The statue, in its sitting 
position, must have been nearly sixty feet in height, and is the 
largest in the world, though not so high as the rock-hewn 
monoliths of Aboo-Simbel. The Turks and Arabs have cut 
several mill-stones out of its head, without any apparent dimi 
nution of its size. 

The Memnonium differs from the other temples of Egypt 
in being almost faultless in its symmetry, even when measured 
by the strictest rules of art. I know of nothing so exquisite 
as the central colonnade of its grand hall — a double row of 
pillars, forty-five feet in height and twenty-three in circum 
ference, crowned with capitals resembling the bell-shaped blos- 
soms of the lotus. One must see them to comprehend how 



THE MEMNONIUM. 125 

this simple form, whose expression is all sweetness and tender- 
ness in the flower, softens and beautifies the solid majesty of 
the shaft. In spite of their colossal proportions, there is 
nothing massive or heavy in their aspect. The cup of the 
capital curves gently outward from the abacus on which the 
architrave rests, and seems the natural blossom of the co- 
lumnar stem. On either side of this perfect colonnade are four 
rows of Osiride pillars, of smaller size, yet the variety of their 
form and proportions only enhances the harmony of the whole. 
This is one of those enigmas in architecture which puzzle one 
on his first acquaintance with Egyptian temples, and which he 
is often forced blindly to accept as new laws of art, because his 
feeling tells him they are true, and his reason cannot satisfac- 
torily demonstrate that they are false. 

We waited till the yellow rays of sunset fell on the capi- 
tals of the Memnonium, and they seemed, like the lotus flowers, 
to exhale a vapory light, before we rode home. All night we 
wandered in dreams through kingly vaults, with starry ceilings 
and illuminated walls ; but on looking out of our windows at 
dawn, we saw the red saddle-cloths of our horses against the 
dark background of the palm grove, as they came down to the 
boat. No second nap was possible, after such a sight, and 
many minutes had not elapsed before we were tasting the cool 
morning air in the delight of a race up and down the shore. 
Our old guide, however, was on his donkey betimes, and called 
us off to our duty. "We passed Groorneh, and ascended the 
eastern face of the mountain to the tombs of the priests and 
private citizens of Thebes. For miles along the mountain 
side, one sees nothing but heaps of sand and rubbish, with 
here and there an Arab hut, built against the face of a tomb 



126 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

whose chambers serve as pigeon-houses, and stalls for asses. 
The earth is filled with fragments of mummies, and the ban- 
dages in which they were wrapped ; for even the sanctity of 
death itself, is here neither respected by the Arabs nor the 
Europeans whom they imitate. I cannot conceive the passion 
which some travellers have, of carrying away withered hands 
and fleshless legs, and disfiguring the abodes of the dead with 
their insignificant names. I should as soon think of carving 
my initials on the back of a live Arab, as on these venerable 
monuments. 

The first tomb we entered almost cured us of the desire to 
visit anothei*. It was that called the Assasseef, built by a 
wealthy priest, and it is the largest in Thebes. Its outer 
court measures one hundred and three by seventy-six feet, and 
its passages extend between eight and nine hundred feet into 
the mountain. We groped our way between walls as black as 
ink, through long, labyrinthine suites of chambers, breathing 
a deathlike and oppressive odor. The stairways seemed to 
lead into the bowels of the earth, and on either hand yawned 
pits of uncertain depth. As we advanced, the ghostly vaults 
rumbled with a sound like thunder, and hundreds of noisome 
bats, scared by the light, dashed against the walls and dropped 
at our feet. We endured this for a little while, but on reach- 
ing the entrance to some darker and deeper mystery, were so 
surrounded by the animals, who struck their filthy wings 
against our faces, that not for ten kings' tombs would we have 
gone a step further. My friend was on the point of vowing 
never to set his foot in another tomb, but I persuaded him to 
wait until we had seen that of Amunoph. I followed the 
guide, who enticed me by flattering promises into a great many 



MEDEENET ABOU THE PYLON. 127 

snakelike holes, and when he was tired with crawling in the 
dust, sent one of our water-carriers in advance, who dragged 
me in and out hy the heels. 

The temple of Medeenet Abou is almost concealed by the 
ruins of a Coptic village, among which it stands, and by which 
it is partially buried. The outer court, pylon and main hall 
of the smaller temple rise above the mounds and overlook the 
plain of Thebes, but scarcely satisfy the expectation of the 
traveller, as he approaches. You first enter an inclosure sur- 
rounded by a low stone wall, and standing in advance of the 
pylon. The rear wall, facing the entrance, contains two sin- 
gle pillars, with bell-shaped capitals, which rise above it and 
stand like guards before the doorway of the pylon. Here was 
another enigma for us. Who among modern architects would 
dare to plant two single pillars before a pyramidal gateway of 
solid masonry, and then inclose them in a plain wall, rising to 
half their height ? Yet here the symmetry of the shafts is not 
injured by the wall in which they stand, nor oppressed by the 
ponderous bulk of the pylon. On the contrary, the light col- 
umns and spreading capitals, like a tuft of wild roses hanging 
from the crevice of a rock, brighten the rude strength of the 
masses of stone with a gleam of singular loveliness. What 
would otherwise only impress you by its size, now endears it- 
self to you by its beauty. Is this the effect of chance, or the 
result of a finer art than that which flourishes in our day ?' I 
will not pretend to determine, but I must confess that Egypt, 
in whose ruins I had expected to find only a sort of barbaric 
grandeur, has given me a new insight into that vital Beauty 
which is the soul of true Art. 

We devoted little time to the ruined court and sanctuaries 



128 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

which follow the pylon, and to the lodges of the main temple, 
standing beside them like watch-towers, three stories in height. 
The majestic pylon of the great temple of Eemeses III. rose 
behind them, out of heaps of pottery and unburnt bricks, and 
the colossal figure of the monarch in his car, borne by two 
horses into the midst of the routed enemy, attracted us from a 
distance. We followed the exterior wall of the temple, for its 
whole length of more than six hundred feet, reading the sculp- 
tured history of his conquests. The entire outer wall of the 
temple presents a series of gigantic cartoons, cut in the blocks 
of sandstone, of which it is built. Kemeses is always the cen- 
tral figure, distinguished from subjects and foes no less by his 
superior stature than by the royal emblems which accompany 
him. Here we see heralds sounding the trumpet in advance of 
his car, while his troops pass in review before him ; there, with 
a lion walking by his side, he sets out on his work of conquest. 
His soldiers storm a town, and we see them climbing the wall 
with ladders, while a desperate hand-to-hand conflict is going 
on below. In another place, he has alighted from his chariot 
and stands with his foot on the neck of a slaughtered king. 
Again, his vessels attack a hostile navy on the sea. One of 
the foreign craft becomes entangled and is capsized, yet while 
his spearmen hurl their weapons among the dismayed enemy, 
the sailors rescue those who are struggling in the flood. After 
we have passed through these strange and stirring pictures, we 
find the monarch reposing on his throne, while his soldiers de- 
posit before him the hands of the slaughtered, and his scribes 
present to him lists of their numbers, and his generals lead to- 
him long processions of fettered captives. Again, he is repre- 
sented as offering a group of subject kings to Amun, the The- 



THE INNER COURT. 129 

ban Jupiter, who says to him : " Go, my cherished and chosen, 
make war on foreign nations, besiege their forts and carry off 
their people to live as captives." On the front wall, he holds 
in his grasp the hands of a dozen monarchs, while with the 
other hand he raises his sword to destroy them. Their faces 
express the very extreme of grief and misery, but he is cold 
and calm as Fate itself. 

We slid down the piles of sand and entered by a side-door 
into the grand hall of the temple. Here, as at Dendera, a sur- 
prise awaited us. We stood on the pavement of a magnificent 
court, about one hundred and thirty feet square, around which 
ran a colonnade of pillars, eight feet square and forty feet high. 
On the western side is an inner row of circular columns, twen- 
ty-four feet in circumference, with capitals representing the 
papyrus blossom. The entire court, with its walls, pillars and 
doorways, is .covered with splendid sculptures and traces of 
paint, and the ceiling is blue as the noonday sky, and studded 
with stars. Against each of the square columns facing the 
court once stood a colossal caryatid, upholding the architrave 
of another colonnade of granite shafts, nearly all of which have 
been thrown from their bases and lie shivered on the pavement. 
This court opens towards the pylon into another of similar 
dimensions, but buried almost to the capitals of its columns in 
heaps of rubbish. The character of the temple is totally differ- 
ent from that of every other in Egypt. Its height is small in 
proportion to its great extent, and it therefore loses the airy 
lightness of the Memnonium and the impressive grandeur of 
Dendera. Its expression is that of a massive magnificence, if 
I may use such a doubtful compound : no single epithet suffi- 
ces to describe it. 



130 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

With Medeenet Abou finished our survey of the western 
division of Thebes — two long days of such experience as the 
contemplation of a lifetime cannot exhaust. At sunset we took 
advantage of the wind, parted from our grooms and water- 
carriers, who wished to accompany me to Khartoum, and cross- 
ed the Nile to Luxor. 



TUB DANCING GIRLS OF EGYPT, 131 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ALMEHS, LUXOR AND K.ARNAK. 

The Dancing Girls of Egypt — A Night Scene in Luxor— The Orange-Blossom and the 
Apple-Blossom — The Beautiful Bemba — The Dance — Performance of the Apple 
Blossom — The Temple of Luxor — A Mohammedan School — Gallop to Karnak — 
View of the Ruins — The Great Hall of Pillars — Bedouin Diversions — A Night 
Ride — Earnak under the Pull Moon — Farewell to Thebes. 

Two days in the tombs of the Kings and the temples of the 
Remesides and the Osirei exhausted us more thoroughly than 
a week of hard labor. In addition to the natural and exciting 
emotion, with which we contemplated those remains, and which 
we would not have repressed, if we could, we puzzled ourselves 
with the secrets of Egyptian architecture and the mysteries of 
Egyptian faith. Those pregnant days were followed by sleep- 
less nights, and we reached Luxor at sunset with a certain 
dread of the morrow. Our mental nerves were too tensely 
strung, and we felt severely the want of some relaxation of an 
opposite character. The course which we adopted to freshen 
our minds for Karnak may strike a novice as singular, but ft 
was most effectual, and can be explained on the truest philo- 
sophical principles. 

In the afternoon Achmet had informed us that two of the 
celebrated Almehs, or dancing-women of the East, who had 



1S2 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

been banished to Esneh, 'were in Luxor, and recommended us 
to witness their performance. This was a welcome proposition, 
and the matter was soon arranged. Our rais procured a large 
room, had it cleared, engaged the performers and musicians, 
and took the cushions of our cabin to make us a stately seat. 
If one should engage Castle Garden, and hire a company of 
ballet-dancers to perform for his special amusement, the fact 
would shake the pillars of New-York society, and as it was, I 
can think of some very good friends who will condemn our 
proceeding as indiscreet, and unworthy the serious aims of 
travel. . As I have no apology to make to myself, I need make 
none to them, except to suggest that the first end of travel is 
instruction, and that the traveller is fully justified in pursuing 
this end, so long as he neither injures himself nor others. 

About eight o'clock, accompanied by Achmet, our Theban 
guide, the rais of our vessel, and our favorite sailor, Ali, we set 
out for the rendezvous. Ali was the most gentleman-like Fellah 
I ever saw. His appearance was always neat and orderly, but 
on this particular evening his white turban was sprucer than 
ever, and his blue mantle hung as gracefully on his shoulders as 
the cloak of a Spanish grandee. He followed behind us, re- 
joicingly bearing the shebooks, as we walked under the moonlit 
columns of Luxor. We passed around the corner of the temple 
and 'ascended a flight of stone steps, to one of the upper cham- 
bers. It was a room about thirty feet long by fifteen wide, 
with a roof of palm-logs, covered with thatch. The floor rest- 
ed on the ceiling of the ancient sanctuary. Our boat-lanterns 
of oiled paper were already suspended from the roof, and a few 
candles, stuck in empty bottles, completed the illumination. 

We were politely received and conducted to the divan, 



A NIGHT-SCENE IN LUXOR. 133 

formed impromptu of a large cafass, or hen-coop, covered with 
a carpet and cushions. We seated ourselves upon it, with legs 
crossed Moslem-wise, while our attendants ranged themselves 
on the floor on the left, and Ali stood on the right, ready to 
replenish the pipes. Opposite to us sat the two Almehs, with 
four attendant dancers, and three female singers, and beside 
them the music, consisting of two drums, a tambourine, and a 
squeaking Arab violin. Our crew, shining in white turbans, 
were ranged near the door, with a number of invited guests, 
so that the whole company amounted to upwards of forty per- 
sons. On our entrance the Almehs rose, came forward and 
greeted us, touching our hands to the lips and forehead. They 
then sat down, drank each a small glass of arakee, and while 
the drum thumped and the violin drawled a monotonous pre- 
lude to the dance, we had leisure to scrutinize their dress and 
features. 

The two famed danseuses bore Arabic names, which were 
translated to us as the Orange-Blossom and the Apple-Blos- 
som. The first was of medium size, with an olive complexion, 
and regular, though not handsome features. She wore a white 
dress, fitting like a vest from the shoulders to the hips, with 
short, flowing sleeves, under which a fine blue gauze, confined 
at the wrist with bracelets, hung like a mist about her arms. 
Her head-dress was a small red cap, with a coronet of gold 
coins, under which her black hair escaped in two shining braids. 
The Apple-Blossom, who could not have been more than fifteen 
years old, was small and slightly formed, dark-skinned, and 
might have been called beautiful, but for a defect in one of her 
eyes. Her dress was of dark crimson silk, with trowsers and 
armlets of white gauze, and a red cap, so covered with coins 



134 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

that it nearly resembled a helmet of golden scales, with a 
fringe falling on each side of her face. Three of the other 
assistants were dressed in white, with shawls of brilliant pat- 
terns bound around the waist. The fourth was a Nubian slave, 
named Zakhfara, whose shining black face looked wonderfully 
picturesque under the scarlet mantle which enveloped it like a 
turban, and fell in long folds almost to her feet. Among the 
singers was one named Bemba, who was almost the only really 
beautiful Egyptian woman I ever saw. Her features were 
large, but perfectly regular ; and her long, thick, silky hair 
hung loose nearly to her shoulders before its gleaming mass 
was gathered into braids. Her teeth were even, and white as 
pearls, and the lids of her large black eyes were stained with 
Jcohl, which gave them a languishing, melancholy expression. 
She was a most consummate actress ; for she no sooner saw 
that we noticed her face than she assumed the most indifferent 
air in the world and did not look at us again. But during the 
whole evening every movement was studied. The shawl was 
disposed in more graceful folds about her head ; the hair was 
tossed back from her shoulders ; the hand, tinged with henna, 
held the jasmine tube of her pipe in a hundred different atti- 
tudes, and only on leaving did she lift her eyes as if first aware 
of our presence and wish us " buona sera " — the only Italian 
words she knew — with the most musical accent of which an 
Arab voice is capable. 

Meanwhile, the voices of the women mingled with the 
shrill, barbaric tones of the violin, and the prelude passed into 
a measured song of long, unvarying cadences, which the drums 
and tambourine accompanied with rapid beats. The Orange- 
Blossom and one of her companions took the floor, after drink- 



THE DANCE. 135 

ing another glass of arakee and tightening the shawls around 
their hips The dance commenced with a slow movement, 
both hands being lifted above the head, while the jingling bits 
of metal on their shawls and two miniature cymbals of brass, 
fastened to the thumb and middle finger, kept time to the mu- 
sic. As the dancers became animated, their motions were 
more rapid and violent, and the measure was marked, not in 
pirouettes and flying bounds, as on the boards of Frank thea- 
tres, but by a most wonderful command over the muscles of 
the chest and limbs. Their frames vibrated with the music 
like the strings of the violin, and as the song grew wild and 
stormy towards its close, the movements, had they not accord- 
ed with it, would have resembled those Of a person seized with 
some violent nervous spasm. After this had continued for an 
incredible length of time, and I expected to see the Almehs 
fall exhausted to the earth, the music ceased, and they stood 
before us calm and cold, with their breathing not perceptibly 
hurried. The dance had a second part, of very different char- 
acter. Still with their lifted hands striking the little cym- 
bals, they marked a circle of springing bounds, in which their 
figures occasionally reminded me of the dancing nymphs of 
Greek sculpture. The instant before touching the floor, as 
they hung in the air with the head bent forward, one foot 
thrown behind, and both arms extended above the head, they 
were drawn on the background of the dark hall, like forms 
taken from the frieze of a temple to Bacchus or Pan. 

Eastern politeness did not require us to cry " brava ! " or 
" encore ! " so we merely handed our pipes to Ali, to be filled 
a second time. Old Achmet Gourgar, our Theban guide, 
however, was so enraptured that he several times ejaculated : 



136 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

a taib Jceteer /" (very good indeed !) and Kais Hassan's dark 
face beamed all over with delight. The circle of white tur- 
baned heads in the rear looked on complacently, and our guard, 
who stood in the moonlight before the open door, almost forgot 
his duty in his enjoyment of the spectacle. I shall never for- 
get the wild, fantastic picture we saw that night in the ruins 
of Luxor. 

The Apple-Blossom, who followed in a dance with one 
named Bakhita, pleased me far better. She added a thousand 
graceful embellishments to the monotonous soul of the music ; 
and her dance, if barbaric, was as poetic as her native palm- 
tree. She was lithe as a serpent, and agile as a young pan- 
ther, and some of her movements were most extraordinary, in 
the nerve and daring required to execute them, and to intro- 
duce them without neglecting the rhythm of the dance. More 
than once she sank slowly back, bending her knees forward, till 
her head and shoulders touched the floor, and then, quick as a 
flash, shot flying into the air, her foot alighting in exact time 
with the thump of the drum. She had the power of moving 
her body from side to side, so that it curved like a snake from 
the hips to the shoulders, and once I thought that, like Lamia, 
she was about to resume her ancient shape, and slip out of 
sight through some hole in the ruined walls. One of the 
dances was a sort of pantomime, which she and Bakhita accom- 
panied with their voices — clear, shrill, ringing tones, which 
never faltered for a moment, or varied a hair's breadth from 
the melody, while every muscle was agitated with the exer- 
tion of her movements. The song was pervaded with a 
strange, passionate tremolo, unlike any thing I ever heard be- 
fore. The burden was : "I am alone ; my family and my 



THE APPLE-BLOSSOM. 137 

friends are all dead ; the plague has destroyed them. Come, 
then, to me, and he my beloved, for I have no other to love 
me." Her gestures exhibited a singular mixture of the aban- 
donment of grief, and the longing of love. While her body 
swayed to and fro with the wild, sad rhythm of* the words, she 
raised both arms before her till the long sleeves fell back and 
covered her face : then opening them in wistful entreaty, sang 
the last line of the chorus, and bringing her hands to her fore- 
head, relapsed into grief again. Apparently the prayer is an- 
swered, for the concluding movement expressed a delirious joy. 

We listened to the music and looked on the dances for 
more than two hours, but at length the twanging of the violin 
and the never-ending drum-thumps began to set our teeth on 
edge, and we unfolded our cramped legs and got down from 
the divan. The lantern was unswung, the candle-ends taken 
from the empty bottles, the Almehs received their fees and 
went off rejoicing, and we left the chambers of Luxor to the 
night-wind and the moon. 

The guide of the Eastern bank, a wiry young Bedouin, 
was in attendance next morning, and a crowd of horses and 
asses awaited us on the shore. I chose a brown mare, with a 
small, slender head and keen eye, and soon accustomed myself 
to the Turkish saddle and broad shovel-stirrups. The temple 
of Luxor is imbedded in the modern village, and only the 
front of the pylon, facing towards Karnak, and part of the 
grand central colonnade, is free from its vile excrescences. 
For this reason its effect is less agreeable than that of the 
Memnonium, although of much grander proportions. Its plan 
is easily traced, nevertheless, and having been built by only 
two monarchs, Remeses the Great and Amunoph III. — or, to 



138 . JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

use their more familiar titles, Sesostris and Memnon— it is 
less bewildering, in a historical point of view, to the unstudied 
tourist, than most of the other temples of Egypt. The sanc- 
tuary, which stands nearest the Nile, is still protected by the 
ancient stone quay, though the river has made rapid advances, 
and threatens finally to undermine Luxor as it has already un- 
dermined the temples of Antseopolis and Antinoe. I rode into 
what were once the sacred chambers, but the pillars and sculp- 
tures were covered with filth, and the Arabs had built in, 
around and upon them, like the clay nests of the cliff-sparrow. 
The peristyle of majestic Osiride pillars, in front of the por- 
tico, as well as the portico itself, are buried to half their depth, 
and so surrounded by hovels, that to get an idea of their ar- 
rangement you must make the tour of a number of hen-houses 
and asses' stalls. The pillars are now employed as drying- 
posts for the buffalo dung which the Arabs use as fuel. 

Proceeding towards the entrance, the next court, which is 
tolerably free from incumbrances, contains a colonnade of two 
rows of lotus-crowned columns, twenty-eight feet in circum- 
ference. They still uphold their architraves of giant blocks 
of sandstone, and rising high above the miserable dwellings of 
the village, are visible from every part of the plain of Thebes. 
The English Vice-Consul, Mustapha Agha, occupies a house 
between two of these pillars. We returned the visit he had 
paid us on our arrival, and were regaled with the everlasting 
coffee and shebook, than which there is no more grateful re- 
freshment. He gave us the agreeable news that Mr. Murray 
was endeavoring to persuade the Pasha to have Karnak cleared 
of its rubbish and preserved from further spoliation. If I pos- 
sessed despotic power — and I then wished it for the first time 



AN EGYPTIAN SCHOOL. 139 

—I should certainly make despotic use of it, in tearing down 
some dozens of villages and setting some thousands of Copta 
and Fellahs at work in exhuming what their ancestors have 
mutilated and buried. The world cannot spare these remains, 
Tear down Roman ruins if you will ; level Cyclopean walls , 
build bridges with the stones of Grothic abbeys and. feudal for- 
tresses ; but lay no hand on the glory and grandeur of Egypt. 

In order to ascend the great pylon of the temple, we were 
obliged to pass through a school, in which thirty or forty little 
Luxorians were conning their scraps of the Koran. They im- 
mediately surrounded us, holding up their tin slates, scribbled 
with Arabic characters, for our inspection, and demanded back- 
sheesh for their proficiency. The gray-bearded pedagogue tried 
to quiet them, but could not prevent several from following 
us. The victories of Remeses are sculptured on the face of 
the towers of the pylon, but his colossi, solid figures of granite, 
which sit on either side of the entrance, have been much de- 
faced. The lonely obelisk, which stands a little in advance, 
on the left hand, is more perfect than its Parisian mate. From 
this stately entrance, an avenue of colossal sphinxes once ex- 
tended to the Ptolemaic pylon of Karnak, a distance of a mile 
and a half. The sphinxes have disappeared, but the modern 
Arab road leads over its site, through fields of waste grass. 

And now we galloped forward, through a long procession 
of camels, donkeys, and Desert Arabs armed with spears, 
towards Karnak, the greatest ruin in the world, the crowning 
triumph of Egyptian power and Egyptian art. Except a 
broken stone here and there protruding through the soil, the 
plain is as desolate as if it had never been conscious of a 
human dwelling, and only on reaching the vicinity of the mud 



140 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hamlet of Karnak, can the traveller realize that he is in Thebes. 
Here the camel-path drops into a broad excavated avenue, 
lined with fragments of sphinxes and shaded by starveling 
acacias. As you advance, the sphinxes are better preserved 
and remain seated on their pedestals, but they have all been 
decapitated. Though of colossal proportions, they are seated 
so close to each other, that it must have required nearly two 
thousand to form the double row to Luxor. The avenue final- 
ly reaches a single pylon, of majestic proportions, built by one 
of the Ptolemies, and covered with profuse hieroglyphics. 
Passing through this, the sphinxes lead you to another pylon, 
followed by a pillared court and a temple built by the later 
Remesides. This, I thought, while my friend was measuring 
the girth of the pillars, is a good beginning for Karnak, but it 
is certainly much less than I expect. " Tcial minhennee/" 
(come this way !) called the guide, as if reading my mind, and 
led me up the heaps of rubbish to the roof and pointed to the 
north. 

Ah, there was Karnak ! Had I been blind up to this time, 
or had the earth suddenly heaved out of her breast the remains 
of the glorious temple ? From all parts of the plain of Thebes 
I had seen it in the distance — a huge propylon, a shattered 
portico, and an obelisk, rising above the palms. Whence this 
wilderness of ruins, spreading so far as to seem a city rather 
than a temple — pylon after pylon, tumbling into enormous 
cubes of stone, long colonnades, supporting fragments of Titan- 
ic roofs, obelisks of red granite, and endless walls and avenues, 
branching out to isolated portals ? Yet they stood as silently 
amid the accumulated rubbish of nearly four thousand years, 
and the sunshine threw its yellow lustre as serenely over the 



141 



despoiled sanctuaries, as if it had never been otherwise, since 
the world began. Figures are of no use, in describing a place 
like this, but since I must use them, I may say that the length 
of the ruins before us, from west to east, was twelve hundred 
feet, and that the total circumference of Karnak, including its 
numerous pyhe, or gateways, is a mile and a half. 

"We mounted and rode with fast-beating hearts to the west- 
ern or main entrance, facing the Nile. The two towers of the 
propylon — pyramidal masses of solid stone — are three hundred 
and twenty-nine feet in length, and the one which is least ruined, 
is nearly one hundred feet in height. On each side of the sculp- 
tured portal connecting them, is a tablet left by the French 
army, recording the geographical position of the principal 
Egyptian temples. "We passed through and entered an open 
court, more than three hundred feet square, with a corridor of 
immense pillars on each side, connecting it with the towers of 
a second pylon, nearly as gigantic as the first. A colonnade 
of lofty shafts, leading through the centre of the court, once 
united the two entrances, but they have all been hurled down 
and lay as they fell, in long lines of disjointed blocks, except 
one, which holds its solitary lotus-bell against the sky. Two 
mutilated colossi of red granite still guard the doorway, whose 
lintel-stones are forty feet in length. Climbing over the huge 
fragments which have fallen from above and almost blocked up 
the passage, we looked down into the grand hall of the temple. 

I knew the dimensions of this hall, beforehand ; I knew the 
number and size of the pillars, but I was "no more prepared for 
the reality than those will be, who may read this account of it 
and afterwards visit Karnak for themselves. It is the great 
good-luck of travel that many things must be seen to be known. 



142 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Nothing could have compensated for the loss of that over- 
whelming confusion of awe, astonishment, and delight, which 
came upon me like a flood. I looked down an avenue of twelve 
pillars — six on each side — each of which was thirty-six feet in 
circumference and nearly eighty feet in height. Crushing as 
were these ponderous masses of sculptured stone, the spreading 
bell of the lotus-blossoms which crowned them, clothed them 
with an atmosphere of lightness and grace. In front, over the 
top of another pile of colossal blocks, two obelisks rose sharp 
and clear, with every emblem legible on their polished sides. 
On each side of the main aisle are seven other rows of columns 
— one hundred and twenty-two, in all — each of which is about 
fifty feet high and twenty-seven in circumference. They have 
the Osiride form, without capitals, and do not range with the 
central shafts. In the efforts of the conquerors to overthrow 
them, two have been hurled from their places and thrown 
against the neighboring ones, where they still lean, as if weary 
with holding up the roof of massive sandstone. I walked alone 
through this hall, trying to bear the weight of its unutterable 
majesty and beauty. That I had been so oppressed by Den- 
dera, seemed a weakness which I was resolved to conquer, and 
I finally succeeded in looking on Karnak with a calmness more 
commensurate with its sublime repose — but not by daylight. 

My ride back to Luxor, towards evening, was the next 
best thing after Karnak. The little animal I rode had become 
excited by jumping over stones and sliding down sand-heaps; 
our guide began to show his Bedouin blood by dashing at full 
gallop toward the pylons and reining in his horse at a bound ; 
and, to conclude, I became infected with a lawless spirit that 
could not easily be laid. The guide's eyes sparkled when I 



BEDOUIN DIVERSIONS. 143 

proposed a race. "We left my friend and the water-carriers, 
bounded across the avenue of sphinxes, and took a smooth path 
leading toward the Desert. My mare needed but a word and 
a jog of the iron stirrup. Away we flew, our animals stretch- 
ing themselves for a loDg heat, crashing the dry dourra-stalks, 
clearing the water-ditches, and scattering on all sides the Arab 
laborers we met. After a glorious gallop of two or three miles 
my antagonist was fairly distanced ; but one race would not 
content him, so we had a second, and finally a third, on the 
beach of Luxor. The horses belonged to him, and it was a 
matter of indifference which was the swiftest ; he raced mere- 
ly for the delight of it, and so did I. 

The same gallant mare was ready for me at night. It was 
precisely full moon, and I had determined on visiting Karnak 
again before leaving. There was no one but the guide and I, 
he armed with his long spear, and I with my pistols in my 
belt. There was a wan haze in the air, and a pale halo around 
the moon, on each side of which appeared two faint mock- 
moons. It was a ghostly light, and the fresh north-wind, 
coming up the Nile, rustled solemnly in the palm-trees. We 
trotted silently to Karnak, and leaped our horses over the frag- 
ments until we reached the foot of the first obelisk. Here we 
dismounted and entered the grand hall of pillars. There was no 
sound in all the temple, and the guide, who seemed to compre- 
hend my wish, moved behind me as softly as a shadow, and 
spoke not a word. It needs this illumination to comprehend 
Karnak. The unsightly rubbish has disappeared : the rents in 
the roof are atoned for by the moonlight they admit ; the frag- 
ments shivered from the lips of the mighty capitals are only 
the crumpled edges of the flower ; a maze of shadows hides the 



144 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

desolation of the courts, but every pillar and obelisk, pylon and 
propylon is glorified by the moonlight. The soul of Karnak 
is soothed and tranquillized. Its halls look upon you no longer 
with an aspect of pain and humiliation. Every stone seems to 
say : "I am not fallen, for I have defied the ages. I am a 
part of that grandeur which has never seen its peer, and I shall 
endure for ever, for the world has need of me." 

I climbed to the roof, and sat looking down into the 
hushed and awful colonnades, till I was thoroughly penetrated 
with their august and sublime expression. I should probably 
have remained all night, an amateur colossus, with my hands 
on my knees, had not the silence been disturbed by two arri- 
vals of romantic tourists — an Englishman and two Frenchmen. 
We exchanged salutations, and I mounted the restless mare 
again, touched her side with the stirrup, and sped back to 
Luxor. The guide galloped beside me, occasionally hurling 
his spear into the air and catching it as it fell, delighted with 
my readiness to indulge his desert whims. I found the cap- 
tain and sailors all ready and my friend smoking his pipe on 
deck. In half an hour we had left Thebes. 



THE TEMPLE OF HERMONTIS. 145 



CHAPTEK XI. 

FROM THEBES TO THE NUBIAN FRONTIER. 

The Temple of Hermontis — Esneh and its Temple — The Governor — El Kab by Torch- 
light — The Temple of Edfon — The Quarries of Djebel Silsileh — Ombos— Approach 
to Nubia — Change in the Scenery and Inhabitants — A Mirage— Arrival at Assouan. 

Our journey from Thebes to Assouan occupied six days, in- 
cluding a halt of twenty-four hours at Esneh. "We left Luxor 
on the night of December Sth, but the westward curve of the 
Nile brought us in opposition with the wind, and the next day 
at noon we had only reached Erment, the ancient Hermontis, 
in sight of the three peaks of the Theban hills. We left our 
men to tug the boat along shore, and wandered off to the 
mounds of the old city, still graced with a small temple, or 
lying-in house of tho goddess Reto, who is here represented as 
giving birth to the god Hor-pire. The sculptures in the dark 
chambers, now used as stalls for asses, were evidently intend- 
ed only for the priesthood of the temple, and are not repeated, 
as are those of other temples, in the halls open to the public. 
Notwithstanding the great license which the Egyptian faith 
assumed, its symbols are, in general, scrupulously guarded 
from all low and unworthy forms of representation. 

The group of pillars in tho outer court charmed us by the 



146 JOURNEY -lO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

richness and variety of their designs. No two capitals are of 
similar pattern, while in their combinations of the papyrus, the 
lotus and the palm-leaf, they harmonize one with another and 
as a whole. The abacus, between the capital and the archi- 
trave, is so high as almost to resemble a second shaft. In 
Karnak and the Memnonium it is narrow, and lifts the pon- 
derous beam just enough to prevent its oppressing the lightness 
of the capital. I was so delighted with the pillars of Hermon- 
tis that I scarcely knew whether to call this peculiarity a grace 
. or a defect. I have never seen it employed in modern archi- 
tecture, and judge therefore that it has either been condemned 
by our rules or that our architects have not the skill and dar- 
ing of the Egyptians. 

"We reached Esneh the same night, but were obliged to re- 
main all the next day in order to allow our sailors to bake 
their bread. "We employed the time in visiting the temple, 
the only remnant of the ancient Latopolis, and the palace of 
Abbas Pasha, on the bank of the Nile. The portico of the 
temple, half buried in rubbish, like that of Dendera, which it 
resembles in design, is exceedingly beautiful. Each of its 
twenty-four columns is crowned with a different capital, so 
chaste and elegant in their execution that it is impossible to 
give any one the preference. The designs are mostly copied 
from the doum-palm, the date-palm, and the lotus, but the 
cane, the vine, and various water-plants are also introduced. 
The building dates from the time of the Ptolemies, and its 
sculptures are uninteresting. We devoted all our time to the 
study of the capitals, a labyrinth of beauty, in which we were 
soon entangled. The Governor of Esneh, Ali Effendi, a most 
friendly and agreeable Arab, accompanied us through the tern- 



EL KAB BY TORCHLIGHT. 14*1 

pie, and pointed out all the fishes, birds and crocodiles he 
could find. To him they were evidently the most interesting 
things in it. He asked me how old the building was, and by 
whom it had been erected. On leaving, we accepted his invi- 
tation to partake of coffee and pipes. The visit took place in, 
due form, with many grave salutations., which we conscien- 
tiously imitated. Achmet had returned to our boat, and my 
small stock of Arabic was soon exhausted, but we managed to 
exchange all the necessary common-places. 

The day of leaving Esneh, we reached El Kab, the ancient 
Eleuthyas, whose rock-tombs are among the most curious in 
Egypt. We landed at twilight, provided with candles, and 
made our way through fields of wiry half eh grass, and through 
a breach in the brick wall of the ancient town, to the Arabian 
Desert. It was already dark, but our guide, armed with his 
long spear, stalked vigorously forward, and brought us safely 
up the mountain path to the entrances of the sepulchres. 
There are a large number of these, but only two are worth 
visiting, on account of the light which they throw on the social 
life of the Egyptians. The owner of the tomb and his wife — 
a red man and a yellow woman — are here seen, receiving the 
delighted guests. Seats are given them, and each is presented 
with an aromatic flower, while the servants in the kitchen 
hasten to prepare savory dishes. In other compartments, all 
the most minute processes of agriculture are represente 1 with 
wonderful fidelity. So little change has taken place in three 
thousand years, that they would answer, with scarcely a cor- 
rection, as illustrations of the Fellah agriculture of Modern 
Egypt. 

The next morning we walked ahead to the temple of Edfou, 



148 JOURNEY- TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

shooting a few brace of fat partridges by the way, and scaring 
two large jackals from their lairs in the thick grass. The 
superb pylon of the temple rose above the earthy mounds of 
Apollinopolis like a double-truncated pyramid. It is in an 
entire state of preservation, with all its internal chambers, pas- 
sages and stairways. The exterior is sculptured with colossal 
figures of the gods, thirty feet in height, and from the base 
of the portal to the scroll-like cornice of the pylon, is more 
than a hundred feet. Through the door we entered a large open 
court, surrounded by a colonnade. The grand portico of the 
temple, buried nearly to the tops of its pillars, faced us, and 
we could only judge, from the designs of the capitals and the 
girth of the shaft, the imposing effect which it must have pro- 
duced on those who entered the court. The interior is totally 
filled with rubbish, and a whole village of Arab huts stands on 
the roof. 

A strong wind carried us, before sunset, to the quarries of 
Djebel Silsileh, the " Mountain of the Chain," where the Nile 
is compressed between two rugged sandstone hills. The river 
is not more than three hundred yards broad, and the approach 
to this rocky gateway, after so many weeks of level alluvial 
plain, is very striking. Here are the sandstone quarries whence 
the huge blocks were cut, to build the temples and shape the 
colossi of Thebes. They lie on the eastern bank, close to the 
river, and the ways down which the stones were slid to the 
vessels that received them, are still to be seen. The stone is 
of a pale reddish-brown color, and a very fine and clear grain. 
It appears to have been divided into squares of the proper size, 
and cut from above downward. The shape of many of the 
enormous blocks may be easily traced. In one place the rock 



THE RUINS OF OMBOS 14$. 

has been roughly hewn into a sort of temple, supported by pil 
lars thirty feet square, and with an entrance as grand and rude 
as a work of the Titans. 

In the morning we awoke in the shadow of Oinbos, which 
stands on a hill overlooking the Nile, into which its temple to 
Isis has fallen. Little now remains of the great temple to 
Savak, the crocodile-headed god, the deity of Onibos, but itj 
double portico, supported by thirteen pillars, buried nearly 
waist-deep in the sands. The aspect of these remains, seated 
on the lonely promontory commanding the course of the river 
and the harvest-land of the opposite shore, while the stealthy 
Desert approaches it from behind, and year by year heaps the 
sand higher against the shattered sanctuary, is sadly touching. 
We lingered and lingered around its columns, loth to leave the 
ruined grace which a very few years will obliterate. Two such 
foes as the Nile and the Desert make rapid progress, where no 
human hand is interposed to stay them. As we sailed away, a 
large crocodile, perhaps Savak himself, lay motionless on a 
sand-bank with his long snout raised in the air. 

"We were two days in sailing from Ombos to Assouan 
owing to a dead calm, the first in two weeks. The nights were 
very cool, and the mid-day temperature not too warm for com- 
fort. One morning my thermometer stood at 40° ; the Arabs 
complained bitterly of the cold, and, wrapped in their woolen 
mantles, crawled about the deck as languidly as benumbed flies. 
At noon the mercury did not often rise above 75° in the 
shade. As we approach Nubia, the scenery of the river 
undergoes a complete change. The rugged hills of black sand- 
stone and granite usurp the place of the fields, and leave but a 
narrow strip of cultivable land on either side. The Arabs are 



150 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

darker and show the blood of the desert tribes in their feature?. 
They are, however, exceedingly friendly. The day before 
reaching Assouan, we walked ahead of our boat and were 
obliged to wait two or three hours. We had a retinue of boys, 
who pummelled one another as to which should pick up the 
pigeons we shot. The successful one came bounding back with 
a face sparkling with delight, and kissed the bird and touched 
it to his forehead as he gave it to us. As we were resting 
under the palm-trees, my friend regretted that we had not 
brought our shebooks along with us. One of the Arabs, guess- 
ing his wish from the word "shebook," instantly ran off and 
scoured the dourra-fields until he found a laborer who owned 
a pipe. He brought the man baek, with the sickle in his hand 
and a corn-stalk pipe of very indifferent tobacco, which he 
gravely presented to my friend. Before returning onboard we 
saw a wonderful mirage. Two small lakes of blue water, glit- 
tering in the sun, lay spread in the yellow sands, apparently 
not more than a mile distant. There Was not the least sign 
of vapor in the air, and as we were quite unacquainted with the 
appearance of the mirage, we decided that the lakes were Nile- 
water, left from the inundation. I pointed to them and asked 
the Arabs : " Is that water ? " " No, no ! " they all exclaimed : 
"that is no water — that is a hahr SJiaytan I '" (a river of the 
Devil). 

The white tomb of a Moslem saint, sparkling in the noon 
day sun, on the summit of a hill overlooking the Nile, finally 
announced our arrival at the Nubian frontier. "We now beheld 
the palms of Assouan and the granite cliffs beyond — which 
we had been so impatient to reach, a few hours before — with 
regret, almost with dread. This was our point of separation. 



THE NUBIAN FRONTIER. 151 

My pathway was through those desolate hills, into the heart 
of Nubia, into the Desert, and the strange countries beyond, 
where so few had been before me. The vestibule was passed : 
Egypt lay behind me. The long landscape of the Nile was 
but the dromos to that temple of African life, whose adytum 
was still far in advance, deep in the fiery tropical silence of 
Ethiopia. While my blood thrilled at the prospect, and the 
thirst of adventure and discovery inspired me as the wind of 
the Desert inspires the Arab charger, I could not part with in- 
difference from the man who had shared with me the first au- 
gust impression, the sublime fascination of Egypt. Nor was 
the prospect of a solitary voyage back to Cairo at all cheering 
to him. Achmet would of course accompany me, and the cook, 
Salame, who knew barely twenty words of French and Italian, 
must perforce act as dragoman. My friend was therefore com- 
pletely at the mercy of the captain and crew, and saw nothing 
but annoyance and embarrassment before him. I had much 
trust in Rais Hassan's honesty and good faith, and was glad 
to learn, several months afterwards, that his conduct had con- 
firmed ii 



152 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PHILiB AND THE CATARACT. 

An Official Visit— Acbmefs Dexterity— The Island of Elephantine— Nubian Children- 
Trip to Philoe— Linant Bey— The Island of Philse— Sculptures— The Negro Race- 
Breakfast in a Ptolemaic Temple— The Island of Biggeh — Backsheesh — The Cataract 
— The Granite Quarries of Assouan— The Travellers separate. 

" "Where Nile reflects the endless length 
Of dark-red colonnades." — Macaulay. 

We had scarcely moored our vessel to the beach at Assou 
an, before a messenger of the G-overnor arrived to ask if there 
was an American on board. He received the information, and 
we were occupied in preparing ourselves for an excursion to 
the island of Elephantine, when Achmet called to us : " The 
Governor is coming." We had no time to arrange our cabin 
for his reception ; he was already at the door, with two attend- 
ants, and the most I could do was to clear sufficient space for 
a seat on my divan. His Excellency was a short, stout, broad- 
faced man, with large eyes, a gray beard and a flat nose. He 
wore a semi-European dress of brown cloth, and was blunt 
though cordial in his manners. His attendants, one of whom 
was the Captain of the Cataract, wore the Egyptian dress, 
with black turbans. They saluted us by touching their hands 



THE GOVERNOR'S VISIT. 153 

to the lips and forehead, and we responded in similar manner, 
after which the G-overnor inquired after our health and we in- 
quired after his. I delivered my letter, and while he was occu- 
pied in reading it, Achmet prepared the coffee and pipes. 
Luckily, we had three shebooks, the best of which, having an 
amber mouth-piece, was presented to the G-overnor. I waited 
for the coffee with some trepidation, for I knew we had but 
two Turkish Jinjans, and a Frank cup was out of the question. 
However, Achmet was a skilful servant. He presented the 
cups at such intervals that one was sure to be empty while the 
other was full, and artfully drew away the attention of our 
guests by his ceremonious presentations ; so that not only they 
but both of us partook twice of coffee, without the least 
embarrassment, and I believe, had there been ten persons 
instead of five, he would have given the two cups the effect of 
ten. 

After the Governor had expressed his pleasure in flowing 
Oriental phrases, and promised to engage me a boat for Koros- 
ko, he took his leave and we crossed in a ferry barge to Ele- 
phantine. This is a small but fertile island, whose granite 
foundations are fast anchored in the Nile. It once was cover- 
ed with extensive ruins, but they have all been destroyed ex- 
cept a single gateway and an altar to Amun, both of red gran- 
ite, and a sitting statue of marble. The southern part is en- 
tirely covered with the ruins of a village of unburnt brick, from 
the topmost piles of which we enjoyed a fine view of the pic- 
turesque environs of Assouan. The bed of the Nile, to the 
south, was broken with isles of dark-red granite rock, the same 
formation which appears in the jagged crests of the mountains 
beyond the city. Scattered over them were the tombs of holy 

•7* 



15 4: JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

men, dating from the times of the Saracens. A thin palm- 
grove somewhat concealed the barren aspect of the city, but 
our glances passed it, to rest on the distant hills, kindling in 
the setting sun. 

The island is inhabited by Nubians, and some twenty or 
thirty children, of from six to ten years of age — the boys entire- 
ly naked, the girls wearing the rcihad, a narrow leathern girdle, 
around the loins — surrounded us, crying " backslieesli ! '" and 
offering for sale bits of agate, coins, and fragments of pottery. 
Some of them had cunning but none. of them intelligent faces, 
and their large black eyes had an astonishingly precocious ex- 
pression of sensuality. We bought a few trifles and tried to 
dismiss them, but their numbers increased, so that by the time 
we had made the tour of the island we had a retinue of fifty 
followers. I took the branches of henna they offered me and 
switched the most impudent of them, but they seemed then to 
consider that they had a rightful claim to the backsheesh, and 
were more importunate than ever. As we left, they gathered 
on the shore and sang us a farewell chorus, but a few five para 
pieces, thrown among them, changed the harmony into a 
scramble and a fight, in which occupation these lovely children 
of Nature were engaged until we lost sight of them. 

The next day we visited Philse. We took donkeys and a 
guide and threaded the dismal valley of Saracenic tombs south 
of the town, into a pass leading through the granite hills. 
The landscape was wintry in its bleakness and ruggedness. 
The path over which we rode was hard sand and gravel, and 
on both sides the dark rocks were piled in a thousand wonder- 
ful combinations. On the surface there is no appearance of 
regular strata, but rather of some terrible convulsion, which 



LIN ANT BT3Y. 155 

has broken the immense masses and thrown them confusedly 
together. Kussegger noticed that the structure of the primi- 
tive strata of Assouan was exactly similar to that of Northern 
Lapland. The varieties of landscape, in different climates, 
depend therefore upon the difference of vegetation and of atmos- 
pheric effect, rather than that of geological forms, which al- 
ways preserve their identity. Dr. Kane also found in the 
bleak hills of Greenland the same structure which he had 
observed in the Ghauts of tropical India. 

After three or four miles of this travel the pass opened 
upon the Nile, just above the Cataract. At the termination 
of the portage is a Nubian village, whose plantations of doum 
and date-palms and acacias are dazzling in their greenness, 
from contrast with the bleak pyramids of rock and the tawny 
drifts of the Lybian sands on the western bank. Vfe rode 
clown to the port, where a dozen trading vessels lay at anchor, 
and took a large boat for Phike. The Governor of Assouan 
was there, and His Excellency showed me the vessel he had 
engaged for me — a small and rather old daliabiyeh, but the 
best to be had. The price was one hundred and fifty piastres 
for the trip — about one hundred and twenty miles — besides 
something for the men. Achmet attributed this moderate de- 
mand to the effect of a timely present, which had been deli- 
cately conveyed into the Governor's" hands the night before. 
There was a tall gentleman, in the official Egyptian costume, 
in company with the Governor. Achmet said he was a French 
engineer in the service of Abbas Pasha, and I afterwards 
learned that he was none other than M. Linant, or Linant 
Bey, whose name is so well known* through his connection 
with the exploration of Petra, and of the antiquities in Ethio- 



156 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

pia. He was accompanied by his wife, a French lady, who 
greeted us courteously, and two daughters of semi- Abyssinian 
origin. The latter were dressed in Oriental costume, but un 
veiled. M. Linant is a tall, grave person, about fifty years of 
age. He wore a crescent of diamonds on his breast, and his 
features expressed all the dignity and repose of one who had 
become thoroughly naturalized in the East. 

As the wind carried us out into the stream, we saw the 
towers of the temple of Isis, on Philse, through a savage gorge 
of the river. The enormous masses of dark granite were piled 
on either .side to a height of several hundred feet, taking in 
some places the forms of monoliths and sitting colossi, one of 
which appeared so lightly balanced on the loose summit that a 
strong gale might topple it down the steep. The current in 
the narrow channel was so violent that we could make no head- 
way, but a Nubian boy, swimming on a palm-log, carried a 
rope to the shore, and we were at length towed with much labor 
into the more tranquil basin girdling Philse. The four lofty 
towers of the two pylons, the side corridors of pillars and the 
exterior walls of the temple seem perfectly preserved, on ap- 
proaching the island, the green turf of whose banks and the 
grouping of its palms quite conceal the ruins of a miserable 
mud village which surrounds the structures. Philse is the 
jewel of the Nile, but -these ruins are an unsightly blotch, 
which takes away half its lustre. The setting is nevertheless 
perfect. The basin of black, jagged mountains, folding on all 
sides, yet half-disclosing the avenues to Egypt and Nubia; 
the hem of emerald turf at their feet, sprinkled with clusters 
of palm, and here and 4 there the pillar or wall of a temple ; 
the ring of the bright river, no longer turbid as in Lower 



THE TEMPLES OF PHIL^E. 15*7 

Egypt : of these it is the centre, as it was once the radiant 
focus of their beauty. 

The temple, which belongs to the era of the Ptolemies, and 
is little more than two thousand years old, was built by various 
monarchs, and is very irregular in its plan. Instead of pre- 
serving a fixed direction, it follows the curve of the island, and 
its various corridors and pylons have been added to each other 
with so little regard to proportion, that the building is much 
more agreeable when viewed as a collection of detached parts, 
lhan as a whole. From its locality, it has suffered compara- 
tively little from the ravages of man, and might be^restored to 
almost its original condition. The mud which Coptic Chris- 
tians plastered over the walls of its sanctuaries has concealed, 
but not defaced, their richly-colored sculptures, and the palm- 
leaf and lotus capitals of its portico retain the first brilliancy 
of- their green and blue tints. The double corridor of thirty- 
six columns, in front of the temple, reaching to the southern 
end of the island, has never been finished, some of the capitals 
last erected being unsculptured, and others exhibiting various 
stages of completion. In Egypt one so accustoms himself to 
looking back four thousand years, that Phike seems but of yes- 
terday. The Gothic Cathedrals of the Middle Ages are like 
antediluvian remains, compared with its apparent newness and 
freshness. 

"We examined the interior chambers with the aid of a torch, 
and I also explored several secret passages, inclosed in the 
thickness of the walls. The sculptures are raised on the face 
of the stone, and painted in light and brilliant colors. They 
represent Isis and Osiris, with their offspring, the god Horus, 
which three constituted the Trinity worshipped in Philse. In 



158 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

one place Isis is seen giving suck to the infant god — a group 
which bore a singular resemblance to some painting I haye 
seen of the Virgin and Child. The gods are here painted of 
fair, Greek complexion, and not, as in the oldest tombs and 
temples, of a light red. Their profiles are symmetrical and 
even beautiful, and the emblems by "which they are surround- 
ed, are drawn and colored in admirable taste. Those friends 
of the African Race, who point to Egypt as a proof of what 
that race has accomplished, are wholly mistake^. The only 
negro features represented in Egyptian sculpture are those of 
slaves and captives taken in the Ethiopian wars of the Pha- 
raohs. The temples and pyramids throughout Nubia, as far 
as the frontiers of Dar-Fur and Abyssinia, all bear the hiero- 
glyphs of these monarchs, and there is no evidence in all the 
valley of the Nile that the Negro Race ever attained a higher 
degree of civilization than is at present exhibited in Congo and 
Ashantee. 

East of the great temple is a square, open building, whose 
four sides are rows of columns, supporting an architrave, and 
united, at about half their height, by screens of stone. The 
capitals are all of different design, yet exhibit the same ex- 
quisite harmony which charmed us in Hermontis and Esneh. 
The screens and pillars were evidently intended to have been 
covered with sculpture, and a roof of sandstone blocks was to 
have been added, which would have made the structure as per- 
fect as it is unique. The square block, or abacus, interposed 
between the capital and architrave, is even higher than in the 
pillars of Hermontis, and I was equally puzzled whether to 
^all it a grace or a defect. There was one thing, however, 
which certainly did give a grace to the building, and that was 



"backsheesh!" 159 

our breakfast, which we ate on a block large enough to have 
made an altar for the Theban Jupiter, surrounded by a crowd 
of silent Arabs. They contemplated the ruins of our cold 
fowls with no less interest than did we those of the temples of 
Philse. 

Before returning, we crossed to the island of Biggeh, 
where two pillars of a temple to Athor stand sentry before the 
door of a mud hut, and a red granite colossus is lucky in 
having no head, since it is spared the sight of such desecra- 
tion. The children of Biggeh fairly drove us away with the 
cries of " backsheesh ! " The hideous word had been rung in 
our ears since leaving Assouan, and when we were again salut- 
ed with it, on landing at the head of the Cataract, patience 
ceased to be a virtue. My friend took his cane and I the 
stick of my donkey-driver, and since the naked pests dared 
not approach near enough to get the backsheesh, they finally 
ceased to demand it. The word is in every Nubian mouth, 
and the very boatmen and camel-drivers as they passed us said 
" backsheesh" instead of "good morning." As it was impos- 
sible to avoid hearing it, I used the word in the same way, 
and cordially returned the greeting. A few days previous, as 
we were walking on shore near Esneh, a company of laborers 
in a dourra-field began the cry. I responded, holding out my 
hand, whereupon one of the men pulled off his white cotton 
cap (his only garment), and offered it to me, saying : " If you 
are poor, take it." 

We walked down to the edge of the Cataract and climbed 
a rock, which commanded a view of the principal rapid 
There is nothing like a fall, and the passage up and down is 
attended with little peril. The bed of the Nile is filled with 



160 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

granite masses, around which the swift current roars and 
foams, and I can imagine that the descent must he very ex- 
citing, though perhaps less so than that of the Rapids of the 
St. Lawrence. Boats are towed up, under the superintendence 
of one of the rais, or captains of the Cataract. There are four 
of these officers, with a body of about two hundred men. The 
fee varies from two to four hundred piastres, according to the 
size of the boat. One third of the money is divided among 
the captains, and the remainder falls to the portion of the men. 
This also includes the descent, and travellers going to the 
Second Cataract and back, pay half the fee on returning. 

On the following morning we visited the ancient granite 
quarries of Assouan. They lie in the hills, south of the town, 
and more than a mile from the river. I never saw a more 
magnificent bed of rock. Its color is a light red, flecked with 
green, and its grain is very fine and nearly as solid as por- 
phyry. An obelisk, one hundred feet long and twelve feet 
square at the base, still lies in the quarry, having been aban- 
doned on account of a slight fissure near its summit. Grooves 
were afterward cut, for the purpose of separating it into blocks, 
but for some reason or other the design was not carried out. 
In many parts of the quarry the method employed by the 
Egyptians to detach the enormous masses, is plainly to be 
seen. A shallow groove was first sunk along the line of frac- 
ture, after which mortices about three inches wide and four 
deep, were cut at short intervals, for the purpose of receiving 
wooden wedges. These having been driven firmly into their 
sockets, were saturated with water, and by their expansion 
forced the solid grain asunder. 

We rode back to the Cleopatra with heavy hearts. Every 



THE TRAVELLERS SEPARATE. 161 

thing had been prepared for our departure, my friend for Cairo 
and Germany, and I for the Nubian Desert and White Nile. 
The Governor of Assouan had despatched a letter to the Gov- 
ernor of Korosko, asking him to have camels ready for the 
Desert, on my arrival, my own letters to my friends were fin- 
ished, my equipage had been transferred to the shore, and 
camels had arrived to transport it around the Cataract to the 
Nubian village, where my boat was in readiness. Our hand- 
some sailor, Ali, begged so hard to be allowed to accompany 
me, that I finally agreed to take him as a servant, and he was 
already on duty. Achmet was nearly as cheerful as he, not- 
withstanding he had just written to his family to say that he 
was going to Soudan, and had given up, as he afterwards in- 
formed me, all hopes of ever seeing Egypt again. The Amer- 
ican flag was run down, and the Saxe-Coburg colors — green 
and white — hoisted in its stead. We had a parting visit from 
the Governor, who gave me another letter to Korosko, and we 
then sat down to a breakfast for which we had no appetite. 
The camels were loaded and sent off in advance, under Ali's 
charge, but I waited until every man was on board the good 
old vessel and ready to push off for Cairo. The large main- 
sail was unshipped and laid over the cabin, and the stern-sail, 
only to be used when the south-wind blows, hoisted in its 
place. The tow-rope was wound up and stowed away, and the 
large oars hung in the rowlocks. Finally, every sailor was at 
his post ; the moment came, and we parted, as two men seldom 
part, who were strangers six weeks before. I goaded my don- 
key desperately over the sands, hastened the loading of my 
effects, and was speedily afloat and alone on the Nubian Nile, 




CHAPTER XII±. 

THE NUBIAN NILE. 

Solitary Travel— Scenery of the Nubian Nile— Agriculture— The Inhabitants— Arrival 
at Korosko — The Governor — The Tent Pitched— Shekh Abou-Mohammed — Bar- 
gaining for Camels — A Drove of Giraffes — Visits — Preparations for the Desert — My 
Last Evening on the Nile. 



We passed to the west of the island of Biggeh, where the cur- 
rent is less rapid, and a gentle north wind soon carried us 
away from Philae. Dark mountains of porphyry rock inclosed 
the river, and the solitude of the shores, broken only by the 
creaking of an occasional sakia, or irrigating wheel, made me 
feel keenly the loneliness of my situation. Achmet, who now 
became cook as well as dragoman, served me up three fowls 



NUBIAN SCENERY. 163 

cooked in different styles, for dinner — partly as an earnest of 
his skill, and partly to dispel my want of spirits. But the fra- 
grant pipe which followed dinner was the true promoter of pa- 
tience, and " Patience," says the Arah poet, " is the key of 
Content." My boat was a small, slow craft, and Rais Heree- 
dee, the captain, the most indolent of Nubians. His weak, 
feminine face showed a lack of character, which Achmet soon 
turned to advantage, by taking the command into his own 
hands. The wind was barely strong enough to obviate the 
necessity of towing, and my three sailors sat on the bow all 
day, singing: " anderbuddee ! anderbuddee ! " as we lazily 
ascended the river. 

Those who do not go beyond Thebes are only half acquaint- 
ed with the Nile. Above Esneh, it is no longer a broad, lazy 
current, watering endless fields of wheat and groves of palm, 
bounded in the distance by level lines of yellow mountain-walls. 
It is narrower, clearer and more rapid, and its valley, after 
the first scanty field of wheat or dourra, strikes the foot of 
broken and rocky ranges, through the gaps in which the winds 
of the Desert have spilled its sands. There is not the same 
pale, beautiful monotony of color, but the landscapes are full 
of striking contrasts, and strongly accented lights and shadows. 
Here, in Nubia, these characteristics are increased, and the 
Nile becomes a river of the North under a Southern sun. The 
mountains rise on either hand from the water's edge ; piles of 
dark sandstone or porphyry rock, sometimes a thousand feet in 
height, where a blade of grass never grew, every notch and jag 
on their crests, every fissure on their sides, revealed in an 
atmosphere so pure and crystalline, that nothing but one of our 
cloudless mid-winter days can equal it. Their hue near at 



164 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hand is a glowing brown ; in the distance an intense violet. 
On the western bank they are lower ; and the sand of that vast 
Desert, which stretches unbroken to the Atlantic, has heaped 
itself over their shoulders and poured long drifts and rills even 
to the water. In color it is a tawny gold, almost approach- 
ing a salmon tint, and its glow at sunrise equals that of the 
snow-fields of the Alps. 

The arable land is a mere hem, a few yards in breadth on 
either side of the river. It supports a few scattering date- 
palms, which are the principal dependence of the Nubians. 
They are taxed at the rate of a piastre and a half each, annu- 
ally, the trees being counted every five years by a Government 
officer appointed for that purpose. If half of them should die 
in the mean time, the tax remains the same until the next 
count. The trees are seven years in coming to maturity, after 
which they produce dates for seven years, and then gradually 
decay. They are male and female, and are generally planted 
so that the pollen may be blown from the male to the female 
flowers. In some parts of Egypt this impregnation is artifi- 
cially produced. The banks are planted with wheat, beans and 
a species of lupin, from which bread is made, and wherever a 
little shelf of soil is found along the base of the mountains, the 
creaking sakias turn day and night to give life to patches of dour- 
ra and cotton. In a rough shed, protected from the sun by palm- 
mats, a cow or buffalo walks a weary round, raising the water, 
which is conveyed in small channels, built of clay, to all the 
numerous beds into which the field is divided. These are fill- 
ed, in regular succession to the depth of two inches, and then 
left to stand until dried by the sun. The process is continued 
until the grain is nearly ripe. The sakias pay a tax of three 



ARRIVAL AT K0R0SX0. 165 

hundred piastres a year, levied in lieu of a ground tax, which the 
Egyptians pay. With all their labor, the inhabitants scarcely 
produce enough to support themselves, and the children are 
sent to Cairo at an early age, where they become house-ser- 
vants, and like the Swiss and Savoyards, send home a portion 
of their earnings. This part of Nubia is inhabited by the 
Kenoos tribe, who speak a language of their own. They and 
their language are designated by the general name of Barabra 
(nearly equivalent to " barbarians") by the Arabs. They are 
more stupid than the Egyptian Eellahs, but their character for 
truth and honesty is superior. In my walks on shore, I found 
them very friendly, and much less impudent than the Nubians 
about Assouan. 

The northern part of Nubia is rich in Egyptian remains, 
but I hastened on without visiting them, passing the temples 
of Dabod, Kalabshee, Dakkeh, Dendoor and Sebooa, which 
looked at me invitingly from the western bank. Near Dendoor 
I crossed the Tropic of Cancer, and on the fourth afternoon 
after leaving Assouan, Kai's Hereedee pointed out in the dis- 
tance the mountain of Korosko, the goal of the voyage. I was 
charmed^ with the near prospect of desert life, but I fancied 
Achmet was rather grave, since all beyond was an unknown 
region to him. The sharp peak of the mountain gradually 
drew nearer, and at dusk my boat was moored to a palm-tree, 
in front of the village of Korosko. 

In less than half an hour, I received a visit from the Gov- 
ernor, Moussa Effendi, who brought me good news. A caravan 
had just arrived from Sennaar, and camels were in readiness 
for the journey to Berber, in Ethiopia. This was very lucky, 
for merchants are frequently detained at Korosko twenty or 



166 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

thirty days, and I had anticipated a delay of at least a week. 
I also learned that Dr. Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar of the 
Catholic Missions in Central Africa, had left for Khartoum 
about twenty days previous. The Governor was profuse in his 
offers of assistance, stating that as Shekh Abou-Mohammed, a 
chief of the Ababdeh tribe, through whose territories my road 
lay, was then in Korosko, he would be enabled to make every 
arrangement for my safety and convenience. 

Early the next morning my equipage was caken ashore, 
and my tent pitched for the first time, under a clump of palm- 
trees, overlooking the Nile. Leaving Ali to act as guard, I 
took Achmet aud walked up to the village of Korosko, which 
is about a quarter of a mile from the shore, at the foot of the 
lofty Djebel Korosko. The Governor's mansion was a mud 
hut, differing from the other huts in size only. His Excellen 
cj received me cordially, and immediately sent for Shekh 
Abou-Mohammed, with whom the contract for camels must be 
made. The Shekh was a tall, imposing personage, with a 
dark-brown complexion, but perfectly straight and regular fea- 
tures. He was accompanied by a superb attendant — an Abab- 
deh, six feet two inches in height, with sharp, symmetrical 
features, and a fine, fierce eye. His hair was raised perpendicu- 
larly from his forehead, but on each side hung down in a great 
number of little twists, smeared with mutton-fat and castor-oil. 
His long cotton mantle was wrapped around him like a Greek 
chlamys, and his bearing was as manly and majestic as that of 
an Ajax or a Diomed. There was some controversy about th6 
number of camels ; Achmet and I had decided that we should 
not require more than five, and the Shekh insisted that we 
should take more, but finally agreed to furnish us with six, in- 



BARGAINING FOR CAMELS. 167 

eluding one for the guide, at the price paid by officers of the 
Government — ninety piastres (four dollars and fifty cents) each, 
to El Mekheyref, the capital of Dar Berber, a journey of four- 
teen days. This included the services of camel-drivers, and 
all other expenses, except the hire of the guide, whose fee was 
that of a camel — ninety piastres. Merchants who travel this 
route, pay according to the weight of their loads, and frequent- 
ly from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty 
piastres. 

Soon after returning to my tent, I was again visited by the 
Governor, who found my choice Latakieh very acceptable to his 
taste. I therefore presented him with two or three pounds of 
it, and some gunpowder, which he received in a way that made 
me sure of his good offices. Shekh Abou-Mohammed also 
came down, inspected my baggage, and was satisfied that the 
camels would not be overloaded. He declared, however, that the 
four gecrbehs, or water-skins, which I had brought from Cairo, 
would not be sufficient, and as none were to be purchased in 
Korosko, loaned me four more for the journey, on my agreeing 
to pay him half their value. I also paid him for the camels, he 
giving a formal receipt therefor, which was intrusted to the 
guide, to be delivered to the Governor of Berber, on our arri- 
val there. Three short, black Arabs of the Bisharee tribe, with 
immense bushy heads of twisted and greased hair, were pre- 
sented to me as the camel-drivers. After receiving their share 
of the money (for the camels belonged to them), they squatted 
down together and occupied an hour or two in counting and 
dividing it. One of them then took a long palm-rope, and 
went into the desert to catch the animals, while the others re- 
mained to assist in arranging the baggage into separate loads. 



108 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The caravan from Sennaar brought twelve giraffes, which 
had been captured in the forests of the Blue Nile, as a present 
from Lattif Pasha, Governor of Soudan, to Abbas Pasha. 
They were in good condition, notwithstanding the toilsome 
march across the Nubian Desert. The officer who had them 
in charge informed me that they made frequent efforts to 
escape, and one of them, which broke from its keeper's hold, 
was only recaptured after a chase of several hours. Four 
large trading-boats were in readiness, to convey them to As- 
souan, and the graceful creatures stood on the bank, with their 
heads almost touching the crowns of the date-trees, looking 
with wonder on the busy scene below. For a long time they 
refused to enter the unsteady barges, but at last, trembling 
with fear, they were forced on board and floated away, their 
slim necks towering like masts in the distance. 

There was a small tent on the bank, pitched not far from 
mine. Its occupant, a one-eyed, olive-faced young man, in 
Egyptian costume, came to pay me a visit, and I found that 
he was a son of M. Linant, by a former Abyssinian wife. He 
was then making his second trip to Soudan, as a merchant, on 
a capital of twenty-five thousand piastres, which his father had 
given him. Although he only required twelve camels, he had 
been eight days in Korosko waiting for them, and was still 
waiting when I left. He was accompanied by a young French- 
man, who was one of the grandest liars I ever met. He told 
me with a grave face, that he had travelled from Algiers to 
Egypt through the Great Sahara, and had on one occasion 
gone eight days without water, and the thermometer one hun- 
dred and twenty-five degrees in the shade ! The son of the 
former Mek (king) of Shendy — the same fierce old savage who 



ORIENTAL COSTUME. 169 

burned to death Ismail Pasha and his soldiers — was also in 
Korosko, and visited me during the day. He held some office 
under G-overnment, which made him responsible for the secu- 
rity of travellers and merchandise in the Desert, and his pres- 
ence probably facilitated my arrangements. He was a strik- 
ingly handsome man, and wore a superb Cashmere shawl 
twisted around his head as a turban. 

The water-skins were soaked in the Nile all day, to pre- 
pare them for use. Achmet, backed by the Governor's au- 
thority, ransacked the village for further supplies of provisions, 
but the place was miserably poor, and he only succeeded in 
procuring two pounds of butter, a few fowls, and some bread. 
There were pigeons in abundance, however, and he cooked a 
sufficient number to last us two or three days. The fowls 
were placed in a light cafass, or coop, to be carried on the top 
of the baggage. Ali, proud of his new station, worked faith- 
fully, and before night all our preparations were completed. 
I then sent for a barber, had my hair shorn close to the skin, 
and assumed the complete Egyptian costume. I was already 
accustomed to the turban and shawl around the waist, and the 
addition of a light silk sidree, or shirt, and trowsers which 
contained eighteen yards of muslin, completed the dress, which 
in its grace, convenience, and adaptation to the climate and 
habits of the East, is immeasurably superior to the Frank cos- 
tume. It allows complete freedom of the limbs, while the 
most sensitive parts of the body are thoroughly protected from 
changes of temperature. The legs, especially, are even less 
fettered by the wide Turkish trowsers than by a Highland kilt, 
and they fold themselves under you naturally and comfortably, 
in the characteristic attitude of the Orientals. The turban, 
8 



1 70 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

which appears so hot and cumbrous, is in reality cool, and im* 
pervious to the fiercest sun that ever blazed. 

After dinner, I seated myself at the tent door, wrapped in 
my capote, and gave myself up to the pipe of meditation. It 
was a splendid starlit evening. Not a blade of the palm- 
leaves was stirring, and the only sounds I heard were the mel- 
ancholy drone of sakias along the river, and the cry of the 
jackal among the hills. The Nile had already become my 
home, endeared to me not more by the grand associations of 
its eldest human history than by the rest and the patience 
which I had breathed in its calm atmosphere. Now I was to 
leave it for the untried Desert, and the strange regions beyond, 
where I should find its aspect changed. Would it still give 
me the same health of body, the same peace and contentment 
of soul ? " Achmet," said I to the Theban, who was sitting 
not far off, silently smoking, "we are going into strange coun- 
tries — have you no fear ?" " You remember, master," he an- 
swered, " that we left Cairo on a lucky day, and why should I 
fear, since all things are in the hands of Allah ?" 






: e 



w^% 




Eyoub, the Ababdah Guide. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE GREAT NUBIAN DESERT. 



The Curve of the Nile — Routes across the Desert — Our Caravan starts — Riding on a 
Dromedary — The Guide and Camel-drivers — Hair-dressing — El Biban— Scenery — 
Dead Camels — An Unexpected Visit — The Guide makes my Grave— The River 
without Water — Characteristics of the Mirage — Desert Life — The Sun — The Desert 
Air — Infernal Scenery — The Wells of Murr-hit — Christmas — Mountain Chains — 
Meeting Caravans — Plains of Gravel — The Story of Joseph — Djebel Mokrat — The 
Last Day in the Desert — We see the Nile again. 

" He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 
O'er the edge of the Desert, black and small, 
And nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 
He can count its camels in the sun." — Lowell. 

A glance at the map will explain the necessity of my Desert 
journey. The Nile, at Korosko (which is in lat. 22° S8'), 
makes a sharp bend to the west, and in ascending his current, 



172 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

one travels in a south-westerly direction nearly to Dcingola, 
thence south to Edabbe, in lat. 18°, after which his course is 
north-east as far as lat. 19° 30', where he again resumes the 
general southern direction. The termini of this immense 
curve, called by the ancients the " elbows" of the Nile, are 
Korosko and Abou-Hammed, in southern Nubia. About 
ninety miles above the former place, at Wadi Haifa, is the 
second^cataract of the Nile, the Southern Thule of Egyptian 
tourists. The river, between that point and Dongola, is so 
broken by rapids, that vessels can only pass during the inun- 
dation, and then with great difficulty and danger. The exi- 
gencies of trade have established, no doubt since the earliest 
times, the shorter route through the Desert. The distance be- 
tween Korosko and Abou-Hammed, by the river, is more than 
six hundred miles, while by the Desert, it is, according to 
my reckoning, only two hundred and forty-seven miles. The 
former caravan route led directly from Assouan to Berber and 
Shendy, and lay some distance to the eastward of that from 
Korosko. It is the same travelled by Bruce and Burckhardt, 
but is now almost entirely abandoned, since the countries of 
Soudan have been made tributary to Egypt. It lies through 
a chain of valleys, inhabited by the Ababdeh Arabs, and ac- 
cording to Burckhardt, there are trees and water, at short in- 
tervals, for the greater part of the way. The same traveller 
thus describes the route from Korosko : a On that road the 
traveller finds only a single well, which is situated midway, 
four long days distant from Berber and as many from Sebooa 
[near Korosko]. A great inconvenience on that road is that 
neither trees nor shrubs are anywhere found, whence the 
camels are much distressed for food, and passengers are oblig- 
ed to carry wood with them to dress their meals." 



THE CARAVAN STARTS. 173 

On the morning of the 21st of December, the water-skins 
were filled from the Nile, the baggage carefully divided into 
separate loads, the unwilling camels received their burdens, 
and I mounted a dromedary for the first time. My little cara- 
van consisted of six camels, including that of the guide. As 
it was put in motion, the Governor and Shekh Abou-Moham- 
med wished me a safe journey and the protection of Allah. 
We passed the miserable hamlet of Korosko, turned a corner 
of the mountain-chain into a narrow stony valley, and in a few 
minutes lost sight of the Nile and his belt of palms. Thence- 
forth, for many days, the only green thing to be seen in all the 
wilderness was myself. After two or three hours' travel, we 
passed an encampment of Arabs, where my Bisharees added 
another camel for their own supplies, and two Nubians, mount- 
ed on donkeys, joined us for the march to Berber. The first 
day's journey lay among rugged hills, thrown together confus- 
edly, with no apparent system or direction. They were of jet 
black sandstone, and resembled immense piles of coke and an- 
thracite. The small glens and basins inclosed in this cbaos 
were filled with glowing yellow sand, which in many places 
streamed down the crevices of the black rocks, like rivulets of 
fire. The path was strewn with hollow globes of hard, black 
stones, precisely resembling cannon-balls. The guide gave 
me one of the size of a rifle-bullet, with a seam around the 
centre, as if cast in a mould. The thermometer showed a 
temperature of eighty degrees at two p. m., but the heat was 
tempered by a pure, fresh breeze. After eight hours' travel, I 
made my first camp at sunset, in a little hollow inclosed by 
mountains, where a gray jackal, after being twice shot at, came 
and looked into the door of the tent. 



174 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

I found dromedary-riding not at all difficult. One sits on 
a very lofty seat, with his feet crossed over the animal's shoul- 
ders or resting on his neck. The body is obliged to rock back- 
ward and forward, on account of the long, swinging gait, and 
as there is no stay or fulcrum except a blunt pommel, around 
which the legs are crossed, some little power of equilibrium is 
necessary. My dromedary was a strong, stately beast, of a 
light cream color, and so even a gait, that it would bear the 
Arab test : that is, one might drink a cup of coffee, while go- 
ing on a full trot, without spilling a drop. I found a great 
advantage in the use of the Oriental costume. My trowsers 
allowed the legs perfect freedom of motion, and I soon learned 
so many different modes of crossing those members, that no 
day was sufficient to exhaust them. The rising and kneeling 
of the animal is hazardous at first, as his long legs double to- 
gether like a carpenter's rule, and you are thrown backwards 
and then forwards, and then backwards again, but the trick of 
it is soon learned. The soreness and fatigue of which many 
travellers complain, I never felt, and I attribute much of it to 
the Frank dress. I rode from eight to ten hours a day, read 
and even dreamed in the saddle, and was at night as fresh and 
unwearied as when I mounted in the morning. 

My caravan was accompanied by four Arabs. The guide, 
Eyoub, was an old Ababdeh, who knew all the Desert between 
the Red Sea and the Nile, as far south as Abyssinia. The 
camel-drivers were of the great Bisharee tribe, which extends 
from Shendy, in Ethiopia, through the eastern portion of the 
Nubian Desert, to the frontiers of Egypt. They owned the 
burden camels, which they urged along with the cry of " Yo- 
ho ! Shekh Abd-el Kader ! " and a shrill barbaric song, the 



THE CAMEL-DRIVERS AND THEIR HAIR. 1*75 

refrain of which was : " Prophet of G-od, help the camels and 
bring us safely to our journey's end ! " They were very sus- 
ceptible to cold, and a temperature of 50°, which we frequent- 
ly had in the morning, made them tremble like aspen leaves, 
and they were sometimes so benumbed that they could scarcely 
load the camels. They were proud of their enormous heads 
of hair, which they wore parted on both temples, the middle 
portion being drawn into an upright mass, six inches in height^ 
while the side divisions hung over the ears in a multitude of 
little twists. . These love-locks they anointed every morning 
with suet, and looked as if they had slept in a hard frost, until 
the heat had melted the fat. I thought to flatter one of them 
as he performed the operation, by exclaiming " Beautiful ! " — 
but he answered coolly : " You speak truth : it is very beauti- 
ful." Through the central mass of hair a wooden skewer was 
stuck, in order to scratch the head without disturbing the 
arrangement. They wore long swords, carried in a leathern 
scabbard over the left shoulder, and sometimes favored us with 
a war-dance, which consisted merely in springing into the air 
with a brandished sword and turning around once before com- 
ing down. Their names were El Emeem, Hossayn and Ali. 
We called the latter Shekh Ali, on account of his hair. He 
wore nothing but a ragged cotton clout, yet owned two camels, 
had a tent in the Desert, and gave Achmet a bag of dollars to 
carry for him. I gave to El Emeem, on account of his shrill 
voice, the nickname of Wiz (wild goose), by which he was 
thenceforth called. They were all very devout, retiring a short 
distance from the road to say their prayers, at the usual hours, 
and performing the prescribed ablutions with sand, instead of 
water. 



176 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

On the second morning we passed through a gorge in the 
black hills, and entered a region called El Biban, or " The 
Gates." Here the mountains, though still grouped in the same 
disorder, were more open and gave room to plains of sand sev 
eral miles in length. The narrow openings, through which the 
road passes from one plain to another, gave rise to the name. 
The mountains are higher than on the Nile, and present the 
most wonderful configurations — towers, fortresses, walls, pyra- 
mids, temples in ruin, of an inky blackness near at hand, but 
tinged of a deep, glowing violet hue in the distance. Towards 
noon I saw a mirage — a lake in which the broken peaks were 
reflected with great distinctness. One of the Nubians who was 
with us, pointed out a spot where he was obliged to climb the 
rocks, the previous summer, to avoid being drowned. During 
the heavy tropical rains which sometimes fall here, the hun- 
dreds of pyramidal hills pour down such floods that the sand 
cannot immediately drink them up, and the valleys are turned 
into lakes. The man described the roaring of the waters, 
down the clefts of the rocks, as something terrible. In sum- 
mer the passage of the Desert is much more arduous than in 
winter, and many men and camels perish. The road was 
strewn with bones and carcasses, and I frequently counted twen- 
ty dead camels within a stone's throw. The stone-heaps which 
are seen on all the spurs of the hills, as landmarks for cara- 
vans, have become useless, since one could find his way by the 
bones in the sand. My guide, who was a great believer in 
afrites and devils, said that formerly many persons lost the 
way and perished from thirst, all of which was the work of 
evil spirits. 

My next camp was in the midst of a high circular plain 



AN UNEXPECTED VISIT. 1*77 

surrounded by hundreds of black peaks. Here I had an unex- 
pected visit. I was sitting in my tent, about eight o'clock, 
when I heard the tramp of dromedaries outside, and a strange 
voice saying : ana waited Ingleez (I am an Englishman). It 
proved to be Capt. Peel, of the British Navy, (son of the late 
Sir Robert Peel), who was returning from a journey to Khar- 
toum and Kordofan. He was attended by a single guide, and 
carried only a water-skin and a basket of bread. He had 
travelled nearly day and night since leaving Berber, and would 
finish the journey from that place to Korosko — a distance of 
four hundred miles — in seven days. He spent an hour with 
me, and then pushed onward through " The Grates " towards 
the Nile. It had been his intention to penetrate into Bar- 
Fur, a country yet unvisited by any European, but on reach- 
ing Obeid, the Capital of Kordofan, his companion, a Syrian 
Arab, fell sick, arid he was himself attacked with the ague 
This decided him to return, and he had left his baggage and 
servants to follow, and was making for England with all speed. 
He was provided with all the necessary instruments to make 
his travel useful in a scientific point of view, and the failure 
of his plans is much to be regretted. I was afterwards inform- 
ed by M. Linant that he met Capt. Peel on the following day, 
and supplied him with water enough to reach the Nile. 

Towards noon, on the third day, we passed the last of the 
" Gates," and entered the Bahr bela Ma (River without 
Water), a broad plain of burning yellow sand. The gateway 
is very imposing, especially on the eastern side, where it is 
broken by a valley or gorge of Tartarean blackness. As we 
passed the last peak, my guide, who had ridden in advance, 
dismounted beside what seemed to be a collection of graves — 
8* 



178 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

little ridges of sand, with rough head and foot stones. He sat 
by one which he had just made. As I came up he informed 
me that all travellers who crossed the Nubian Desert, for the 
first time, are here expected to pay a toll, or fee to the guide 
and camel-men. " But what if I do not choose to pay ? " I 
asked. " Then you will immediately perish, and be buried 
here. The graves are those of persons who refused to pay." 
As I had no wish to occupy the beautiful mound he had heap- 
ed for me, with the thigh-bones of a camel at the head and 
foot, I gave the men a few piastres, and passed the place. He 
then plucked up the bones and threw them away, and restored 
the sand to its original level.* 

The Balir bela Ma spread out before us, glittering in the 
hot sun. About a mile to the eastward lay (apparently) a lake 
of blue water. Reeds and water-plants grew on its margin, 
and its smooth surface reflected the rugged outline of the hills 
beyond. The Waterless River is about two miles in breadth, 
and appears to have been at one time the bed of a large stream. 

* Burckhardt gives the following account of the same custom, in his 
travels in Nubia : " In two hours and a half we came to a plain on the 
top of the mountain called Ahabet el Benat, the Rocks of the Girls. Here 
the Arabs who serve as guides through these mountains have devised a 
singular mode of extorting presents from the traveller; they alight at 
certain spots in the Akabet el Benat, and beg a present; if it is refused, 
they collect a heap of sand, and mould it into the form of a diminutive 
tomb, and then placing a stone at each of the extremities, they ap- 
prise the traveller that his tomb is made ; meaning, that henceforward, 
there will be no security for him, in this rocky wilderness. Most per- 
sons pay a trifling contribution, rather than have their graves made be- 
fore their eyes ; there were, however, several tombs of this description 
dispersed over the plain." 



TI1K RIVER WITHOUT WATEK. 179 

It crosses all tlie caravan routes in the desert, and is supposed 
to extend from the Nile to the Eed Sea. It may have been 
the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage 
through the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan 
and Kalabshee. A geological exploration of this part of Afri- 
ca could not fail to produce very interesting results. Beyond 
the Balir bela 31a extends the broad central plateau of the 
Desert, fifteen hundred feet above the sea. It is a vast reach 
of yellow sand, dotted -with low, isolated hills, which in some 
places are based on large beds of light-gray sandstone of an 
unusually fine and even grain. Small towers of stone have 
been erected on the hills nearest the road, in order to guide 
the couriers who travel by night. Near one of them the guide 
pointed out the grave of a merchant, who had been murdered 
there two years previous, by his three slaves. The latter es- 
caped into the Desert, but probably perished, as they were 
never heard of afterwards. In the smooth, loose sand, I had 
an opportunity of reviving my forgotten knowledge of track- 
ography, and soon learned to distinguish the feet of hyenas, 
foxes, ostriches, lame camels and other animals. The guide 
assured me that there were devils in the Desert, but one only 
sees them when he travels alone. 

On this plain the mirage, which first appeared in the Biban, 
presented itself under a variety of wonderful aspects. Thence- 
forth, I saw it every day, for hours together, and tried to de- 
duce some rules from the character of its phenomena. It 
appears on all sides, except that directly opposite to the sun, but 
rarely before nine a. m. or after three p. m. The color of the 
apparent water is always precisely that of the sky, and this is 
a good test to distinguish it from real water, which is invari- 



180 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ably of a deeper hue. It is seen on a gravelly as well as a 
sandy surface, and often fills with shining pools the slight de- 
pressions in the soil at the bases of the hills. Where it extends 
to the horizon there is no apparent line, and it then becomes 
an inlet of the sky, as if the walls of heaven were melting down 
and flowing in upon the earth. Sometimes a whole mountain 
chain is lifted from the horizon and hung in the air, with its 
reflected image joined to it, base to base. I frequently saw, 
during the forenoon, lakes of sparkling blue water, apparently 
not a quarter of a mile distant. The waves ripple in the wind; 
tall reeds and water-plants grow on the margin, and the Desert 
rocks behind cast their shadows on the surface. It is impossi- 
ble to believe it a delusion. You advance nearer, and sudden- 
ly, you know not how, the lake vanishes. There is a grayish 
film over the spot, but before you have decided whether the 
film is in the air or in your eyes, that too disappears, and you 
see only the naked sand. What you took to be reeds and 
water-plants probably shows itself as a streak of dark gravel. 
The most probable explanation of the mirage which I could 
think of, was, that it was actually a reflection of the sky upon 
a stratum of heated air, next the sand. 

I found the Desert life not only endurable but very agree- 
able. No matter how warm it might be at mid-day, the nights 
were always fresh and cool, and the wind blew strong from the 
north-west, during the greater part of the time. The .tempera- 
ture varied from 50°— 55° at 6 a. m. to 80°— 85° at 2 p. ai. 
The extremes were 47° and 100°. So great a change of tem- 
perature every day was not so unpleasant as might be suppos- 
ed. In my case, Nature seemed to make a special provision 
in order to keep the balance right. During the hot hours of 



LIFE IN THE DESERT. 181 

the day I never suffered inconvenience from the heat, but up 
to 85° felt sufficiently cool. I seemed to absorb the rays of 
the sun, and as night came on and the temperature of the air 
fell, that of my skin rose, till at last I glowed through and 
through, like a live coal. It was a peculiar sensation, which I 
never experienced before, but was rather pleasant than other- 
wise. My face, however, which was alternately exposed to the 
heat radiated from the sand, and the keen morning wind, could 
not accommodate itself to so much contraction and expansion. 
The skin cracked and peeled off more than once, and I was 
obliged to rub it daily with butter. I mounted my dromedary 
with a " shining morning face," until, from alternate buttering 
and burning, it attained the hue and crispness of a well-basted 
partridge. 

I soon fell into a regular daily routine of travel, which, 
during all my later experiences of the Desert, never became 
monotonous. I rose at dawn every morning, bathed my eyes 
with a handful of the precious water, and drank a cup of 
coffee. After the tent had been struck and the camels laden, 
I walked ahead for two hours, often so far in advance that I 
lost sight and hearing of the caravan. I found an unspeak- 
able fascination in the sublime solitude of the Desert. I often 
beheld the sun rise, when, within the wide ring of the horizou, 
there was no other living creature to be seen. He came up 
like a god, in awful glory, and it would have been a natural 
act, had I cast myself upon the sand and worshipped him. 
The sudden change in the coloring of the landscape, on his ap- 
pearance — the lighting up of the dull sand into a warm golden 
hue, and the tintings of purple and violet on the distant por- 
phyry hills— was a morning miracle, which I never beheld 



182 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

without awe. The richness of this coloring made the Desert 
beautiful ; it was too brilliant for desolation. The scenery, so 
far from depressing, inspired and exhilarated me. I never 
felt the sensation of physical health and strength in such per- 
fection, and was ready to shout from morning till night, from 
the overflow of happy spirits. The air is an elixir of life — as 
sweet and pure and refreshing as that which the first Man 
breathed, on the morning of Creation. You inhale the una- 
dulterated elements of the atmosphere, for there are no exha- 
lations from moist earth, vegetable matter, or the smokes and 
steams which arise from the abodes of men, to stain its purity. 
This air, even more than its silence and solitude, is the secret 
of one's attachment to the Desert. It is a beautiful illustra- 
tion of the compensating care of that Providence, which leaves 
none of the waste places of the earth without some atoning 
glory. Where all the pleasant aspects of Nature are wanting 
— where there is no green thing, no fount for the thirsty lip, 
scarcely the shadow of a rock to shield the wanderer in the 
blazing noon — Glod has breathed upon the wilderness his 
sweetest and tenderest breath, giving clearness to the eye, 
strength to the frame, and the most joyous exhilaration to the 
spirits. 

Achmet always insisted on my taking a sabre as a-protec- 
tion against the hyenas, but I was never so fortunate as to see 
more than their tracks, which crossed the path at every step. 
I saw occasionally the footprints of ostriches, but they, as well 
as the giraffe, are scarce in this Desert. Towards noon, Ach- 
met and I made a halt in the shadow of a rock, or if no rock 
was at hand, on the bare sand, and took our breakfast. One's 
daily bread is never sweeter than in the Desert. The rest of 



DESERT SCENERY. 183 

the day I jogged along patiently beside the baggage camels, 
and at sunset halted for the night. A divan on the sand, and 
a well-filled pipe, gave me patience while dinner was prepar- 
ing, and afterwards I made the necessary entries in my jour- 
nal. I had no need to court sleep, after being rocked all day 
on the dromedary. 

At the close of the third day, we encamped opposite a 
mountain which Eyoub called Djebel Khattab (the Mountain 
of Wood). The Bohr Khattab, a river of sand, similar to 
the Bahr bela Ma, and probably a branch of it, crossed our 
path. I here discovered that the water-skins I had hired 
from Shekh Abou-Mohammed were leaky, and that our eight 
skins were already reduced to four, while the Arabs had en- 
tirely exhausted their supply. This rendered strict economy 
necessary, as there was but a single well on the road. Until 
noon the next day we journeyed over a vast plain of sand, in- 
terrupted by low reefs of black rock. To the south-east it 
stretched unbroken to the sky, and looking in that direction, 
I saw two hemispheres of yellow and blue, sparkling all over 
with light and heat, so that the eye winked to behold them. 
The colocynth (called by the Arabs murrar), grew in many 
places in the dry, hot sand. The fruit resembles a melon, and 
is so intensely bitter that no animal will eat it. I made 
breakfast under the lee of an isolated rock, crowned with a 
beacon of camel-bones. We here met three Ababdehs, armed 
with long spears, on their way to Korosko. Soon after mid 
day the plain was broken by low ranges of hills, and we saw in 
front and to the east of us many blue mountain-chains. Our 
road approached one of them — a range, several miles in length, 
the highest peak of which reached an altitude of a thousand 



184 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFHICA. 

feet. The sides were precipitous and formed of vertical strata, 
but the crests were agglomerations of loose stones, as if shaken 
out of some enormous coal-scuttle. The glens and gorges were 
black as ink ; no speck of any other color relieved the terrible 
gloom of this singular group of hills. Their aspect was much 
more than sterile : it was infernal. The name given to them 
by the guide was Djilet c' Djindee, the meaning of which I 
could not learn. At their foot I found a few thorny shrubs, 
the first sign of vegetation since leaving Korosko. 

We encamped half an hour before sunset on a gravelly 
plain, between two spurs of the savage hills, in order that our 
camels might browse on the shrubs, and they were only too 
ready to take advantage of the permission. They snapped off 
the hard, dry twigs, studded with cruel thorns, and devoured 
them as if their ""tongues were made of cast-iron. We were 
now in the haunts of the gazelle and the ostrich, but saw 
nothing of them. Shekh Ali taught me a few words of the 
Bisharee language, asking for the English words in return, 
and was greatly delighted when I translated ok-am (camel), 
into "0 camel!" "Wallah!" said he, "your language is 
the same as ours." The Bisharee tongue abounds with 
vowels, and is not unmusical. Many of the substantives com- 
mence with o — as omelc, a donkey ; osha, a cow ; ogana, a ga- 
zelle. The plural changes o into a, as akam, camels ; amelc, 
donkeys, &c. The language of the Ababdehs is different from 
that of the Bisharees, but probably sprang from the same 
original stock. Lepsius considers that the Kenoos dialect of 
Nubia is an original African tongue, having no affinity with 
any of the Shemitic languages. 

On the fifth day we left the plain, and entered a cou»try 



THE WELLS OF MURR-HAT. 185 

of broken mountain-ranges. In one place the road passed 
through a long, low hill of slate rock, by a gap which had been 
purposely broken. The strata were vertical, the laminae vary- 
ing from one to four inches in thickness, and of as fine a quali- 
ty and smooth a surface as I ever saw. A long wady, or val- 
ley, which appeared to be the outlet of some mountain-basin, 
was crossed by a double row of stunted doum-palms, marking 
a water-course made by the summer rains. Eyoub pointed it 
out to me, as the half-way station between Korosko and Abou- 
Hammed. For two hours longer we threaded the dry wadys, 
shut in by black, chaotic hills. It was now noonday, I was 
very hungry, and the time allotted by Eyoub for reaching Bir 
Miirr-hdt had passed. He saw my impatience and urged his 
dromedary into a trot, calling out to me to follow him. We 
bent to the west, turned the flank of a high range, and after 
half an hour's steady trotting, reached a side-valley or cul-de- 
sac, branching off from the main wady. A herd of loose 
camels, a few goats, two black camel's-hair tents, and half a 
dozen half-naked Ababdehs, showed that we had reached the 
wells. A few shallow pits, dug in the centre of the valley, fur- 
nished an abundance of bitter, greenish water, which the 
camels drank, but which I could not drink. The wells are 
called by the Arabs el morra, " the bitter." Fortunately, I 
had two skins of Nile-water left, which, with care, would last 
to Abou-Hammed. The water was always cool and fresh, 
though in color and taste it resembled a decoction of old shoes. 
"We found at the wells Capt. Peel's Syrian friend, Churi, 
who was on his way to Korosko with five camels, carrying the 
Captain's baggage. He left immediately after my arrival, or 
I might have sent by him a Christmas greeting to friends at 



186 



JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



home. During the afternoon three slave-merchants arrived, in 
four days from Abou-Hamnied. Their caravan of a hundred 
and fifty slaves was on the way. They were tall, strong, hand- 
some men, dark-brown in complexion, but with regular fea- 




The Wells of Murr-Hat. 

tures. They were greatly pleased with my sketch-book, but 
retreated hastily when I proposed making a drawing of them. 
I then called Eyoub into my tent, who willingly enough sat 
for the rough sketch which heads this chapter. Achmet did 
his best to give me a good Christmas dinner, but the pigeons 
were all gone, and the few fowls which remained were so spirit- 
less from the heat and jolting of the camel, that their slaugh- 
ter anticipated their natural death by a very short time. 
Nevertheless, I produced a cheery illumination by the tent- 
lanterns, and made Eyoub and the Bisharees happy with a 
bottle of arakee and some handfulls of tobacco. The wind 



MEETING CARAVANS. 18*7 

whistled drearily around my tent, but I glowed like fire from 
the oozing out of the heat I had absorbed, and the Arabs with- 
out, squatted around their fire of camel's dung, sang the wild, 
monotonous songs of the Desert. 

We left Murr-hat at sunrise, on the morning of the sixth 
day. I walked ahead, through the foldings of the black moun- 
tains, singing as I went, from the inspiration of the brilliant 
sky and the pure air. In an hour and a half the pass opened 
on a broad plain of sand, and I waited for my caravan, as the 
day was growing hot. On either side, as we continued our 
journey, the blue lakes of the mirage glittered in the sun. 
Several isolated pyramids rose above the horizon, far to the 
East, and a purple mountain-range in front, apparently two or 
three hours distant, stretched from east to west. " We will 
breakfast in the shade of those mountains," I said to Achmet, 
but breakfast-time came and they seemed no nearer, so I sat 
down in the sand and made my meal. Towards noon we met 
large caravans of camels, coining from Berber. Some were 
laden with gum, but the greater part were without burdens, us 
they were to be sold in Egypt. In the course of the day up- 
wards of a thousand passed us. Among the persons we met 
was Capt. Peel's cawass, or janissary (whom he had left in 
Khartoum), on his return, with five camels and three slaves, 
which he had purchased on speculation. He gave such a dis- 
mal account of Soudan, that Achmet was quite gloomy for the 
rest of the day. 

The afternoon was intensely hot, the thermometer standing 
at 100°, but I felt little annoyance from the heat, and used no 
protection against it. The sand was deep and the road a wea- 
ry one for the camels, but the mountains which seemed so near 



188 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

at hand in the morning were not yet reached. We pushed for- 
ward ; the sun went down, and the twilight was over before we 
encamped at their base. The tent was pitched by the light of 
the crescent moon, which hung over a pitchy-black peak. I 
had dinner at the fashionable hour of seven. Achmet was 
obliged to make soup of the water of Mitrr-hat, which had an 
abominable taste. I was so drowsy that before my pipe was 
finished, I tumbled upon my mattress, and was unconscious 
until midnight, when I awoke with the sensation of swimming 
in a river of lava. Eyoub called the mountain Kdb el Kafass 
— an absurd name, without meaning — but I suspect it is the 
same ridge which crosses the caravan route from Shendy to 
Assouan, and which is called Djebel Shigre by Bruce and 
Burckhardt. 

The tent was struck in the morning starlight, at which 
time the thermometer stood at. 55°. I walked alone through 
the mountains; ^hich rose in conical peaks to the height of 
near a thousand feet. The path was rough and stony until I 
reached the outlet of the pass. 'When the caravan came up, I 
found that the post-courier who left Korosko two days after 
us, had joined it. He was a jet-black, bare-headed and bare- 
legged Bisharee, mounted on a dromedary. He remained with 
us all day, and liked our company so well that he encamped 
with us, in preference to continuing his journey. On leaving 
the mountain, we entered a plain of coarse gravel, abounding 
with pebbles of agate and jasper. Another range, which 
Eyoub called Djebel Dighlee, appeared in front, and we reach- 
ed it about noon. The day was again hot, the mercury rising 
to 95°. It took us nearly an hour to pass Djebel Dighlee, 
beyond which the plain stretched away to the Nile, interrupt- 



THE MOUNTAIN OF MOKRAT. 189 

ed here and there by a distant peak. Far in advance of us lay 
Djebel Mokrat, the limit of the next day's journey. From its 
top, said Eyoub, one may see the palm-groves along the Nile. 
We encamped on the open plain, not far from two black pyra- 
midal hills, in the flush of a superb sunset. The ground was 
traversed by broad strata of gray granite, which lay on the 
surface in huge boulders. Our camels here found a few bunch- 
es of dry, yellow grass, which had pierced the gravelly soil. 
To the south-east was a mountain called by the Arabs Djebel 
No gar a (the Mountain of the Drum), because, as Eyoub de- 
clared, a devil who had his residence among its rocks, frequent- 
ly beat a drum at night, to scare the passing caravans. 

The stars were sparkling freshly and clearly when I rose, 
on the morning of the eighth day, and Djebel Mokrat lay like 
a faint shadow on the southern horizon. The sun revealed a 
few isolated peaks to the right and left, but merely distant 
isles on the vast, smooth ocean of the Desert. It was a rap- 
ture to breathe air of such transcendent purity and sweetness. 
I breakfasted on the immense floor, sitting in the sun, and then 
jogged on all day, in a heat of 90°, towards Djebel Mokrat, 
which seemed as far off as ever. The sun went down, and it 
was still ahead of us. " That is a Djelel Shaytan," I said to 
Eyoub ; " or rather, it is no mountain ; it is an afrite." " 
Eflendi ! " said the old man, " don't speak of afrites here. 
There are many in this part of the Desert, and if a man travels 
alone here at night, one of them walks behind him and forces 
him to go forward and forward, until he has lost his path." 
We rode on by the light of the moon and stars — silently at 
first, but presently Shekh Ali began to sing his favorite song 
of " Yallak salaameh, el-hamdu Ullahfok belameh" and one 



190 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of the Kenoos, to beguile the way, recited in a chanting tone 
copious passages from the Koran. Among other things, he 
related the history of Joseph, which Achmet translated to me. 
The whole story would he too long to repeat, but portions of it 
are interesting. 

" After Joseph had been thrown into the well," continued 
the Kenoos, " a caravan of Arabs came along, and began to 
draw water for the camels, when one of the men said : ' 
Shekh, there is something in the well.' 'Well,' said the Shekh, 
' if it be a man, he belongs to me, but if it be goods, you may 
have them.' So they drew it up, and it was Joseph, and the 
Shekh took him to Cairo and sold him to Azeez (Potiphar).' 
[I omit his account of Potiphar's wife, which could not well be 
repeated.] When Joseph was in prison, he told what was the 
meaning of the dreams of Sultan Faraoon's baker and butler 
who were imprisoned with him. The Sultan himself soon 
afterwards had a dream about seven fat cows eating seven lean 
ones, which nobody could explain. Then the jailer went to 
Faraoon, and said : ' Here is Joseph, in jail — he can tell you 
all about it.' Faraoon said : 'Bring him here, then.' So they 
put Joseph in a bath, washed him, shaved his head, gave him 
a new white turban, and took him to the Sultan, who said to 
him : ' Can you explain my dream ? ' ' To be sure I can,' said 
Joseph, ' but if I tell you, you must make me keeper of your 
magazines.' ' Very well : ' said Faraoon. Then Joseph told 
how the seven fat cows meant seven years wheh the Nile would 
have two inundations a year, and the seven lean cows, seven 
years afterwards when it would have no inundation at all ; and 
he said to Faraoon that since he was now magazine-keeper, he 
should take from all the country as far as Assouan, during the 



THE LAST DAT IN THE DESERT. 191 

seven fat years, enough wheat and dourra and beans, to last 
during the seven lean ones." The narrator might have 
added that the breed of fat kine has never been restored, all 
the cattle of Egypt being undoubted descendants of the lean 
stock. • 

Two hours after sunset, we hilled Djebel Mokrat, as the 
Arabs say : that is, turned its corner. The weary camels were 
let loose among some clumps of dry, rustling reeds, and I 
stretched myself out on the sand, after twelve hours in the 
saddle. Our water was nearly exhausted by this time, and 
the provisions were reduced to hermits' fare — bread, rice and 
dates. I had, however, the spice of a savage appetite, which 
was no sooner appeased, than I fell into a profound sleep. I 
could not but admire the indomitable pluck of the little don- 
keys owned by the Kenoos. These animals not only carried 
provisions and water for themselves and their masters, the 
whole distance, but the latter rode them the greater part of the 
way ; yet they kept up with the camels, plying their little legs 
as ambitiously the last day as the first. I doubt whether a 
horse would have accomplished as much under similar circum- 
stances. 

The next morning we started joyfully, in hope of seeing 
the Nile, and even Eyoub, for the first time since leaving Ko- 
rosko, helped to load the camels. In an hour we passed the 
mountain of Mokrat, but the same endless plain of yellow 
gravel extended before us to the horizon. Eyoub had promised 
that we should reach Abou-Hammed in half a day, and even 
pointed out some distant blue mountains in the south, as being 
beyond the Nile. Nevertheless, we travelled nearly till noon 
without any change of scenery, and no more appearance of river 



15>J JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

than the abundant streams of the mirage, on all sides. I drank 
my last cup of water for breakfast, and then continued my march 
in the burning sun, with rather dismal spirits. Finally, the 
Desert, which had been rising since we left the mountain, be- 
gan to descend, and I saw something like round granite bould- 
ers lying on the edge of the horizon. " Effendi, see the doum 
trees ! " cried Eyoub. I looked again : they were doum-palms, 
and so broad and green that they must certainly stand near 
water. Soon we descended into a hollow in the plain, looking 
down which I saw to the south a thick grove of trees, and over 
their tops the shining surface of the Nile. " Ali," I called to 
my sailor-servant, " look at that great balir shaytan ! " The 
son of the Nile, who had never before, in all his life, been more 
than a day out of sight of its current, was almost beside him- 
self with joy. " "Wallah, master," he cried, " that is no river 
of the Devil : it is the real Nile — the water of Paradise." It 
did my heart good to se.e his extravagant delight. "If you 
were to give me five piastres, master," said he, " I would not 
drink the bitter water of Murr-hat." The guide made me a 
salutation, in his dry way, and the two Nubians greeted me 
with " a great welcome to you, 0, Effendi ! " With every step 
the valley unfolded before me — such rich deeps of fanlike foli- 
age, such a glory in the green of the beans and lupins, such 
radiance beyond description in the dance of the sunbeams on 
the water ! The landscape was balm to my burning eyes, and 
the mere sight of the glorious green herbage was a sensuous 
delight, in which I rioted for the rest of the day. 




Ihe Tent-Dcor, at Abou-Hammed 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE ETHIOPIAN 



KOKTIEE. 



A Draught of Water — Abou-Hammed — The Island of Mokrat — Ethiopian Scenery — 
The People — An Ababdeh Apollo — Encampment on the Nile — Tomb of an English- 
man — Eesa's "Wedding— A "White Arab — The Last Day of the Tear — Abou-Hashym 
— Incidents — Loss of my Thermometer— The Valley of "Wild Asses — The Eleventh 
Cataract — Approach to Berber — Vultures — Eyoub Outwitted — We reach El Melc 
heyref — The Caravan Broken up. 

Achmet and I began to feel thirst, so we hurried on in ad- 
vance, to the mud hamlet of Ahou-Hammed. We dismounted 
on the bank of the river, where we were received by a dark 
Ababdeh, who was officiating in place of the Governor, and in- 
vited me to take possession of the latter's house. Achmet 
gave him a large wooden bowl and told him to fill it from the 
Nile, and we would talk to him afterwards. I shall never for- 
get the luxury of that long, deep draught. My body absorbed 
9 



194 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the water as rapidly as the hot sand of the Desert, and I drank 
at least a quart without feeling satisfied. I preferred my tent 
to the Governor's house, and had it pitched where I could look 
out on the river and the palms. Ahou-Hammed is a miserable 
village, inhabited by a few hundred Ababdehs and Bisharees. 
The Desert here extended to the water's edge, while the oppo- 
site banks were as green as emerald. There was a large mud 
fortress, with round bastions at the corners, to the west of the 
village. It formerly belonged to an Ababdeh Shekh, but was 
then deserted. 

In the afternoon I crossed to the island of Mokrat, which 
lies opposite. The vessel was a sort of a canoe, made of pieces 
of the doum-palm, tied together with ropes and plastered with 
mud. My oarsmen were two boys of fifteen, half-naked fellows 
with long, wild hair, yet very strong and symmetrical limbs 
and handsome features. I landed in the shade of the 
palms, and walked for half an hour along the shore, through 
•patches of dourra and cotton, watered by the creaking mills. 
The whole island, which is upwards of twenty miles long, is 
level and might be made productive, but the natives only cul- 
tivate a narrow strip along the water. The trees were doum 
and date palm and acacia, and I saw in the distance others of 
a rich, dark green, which appeared to be sycamore. The hip- 
popotamus is found here, and the boatmen showed me the 
enormous tracks of three, which had made havoc among their 
bean-patches the day before. As I was returning to the boat 
I met three natives, tall, strong, stately men. I greeted them 
witn "Peace be withj^ou!" and they answered "Peace be 
with you," at the same time offering their hands. We talked 
for some time in broken Arabic, and I have rarely seen such 



ABOU-HAMMED. 195 

good-will expressed in savage features. In fact, all the faces I 
now saw were of a superior stamp to tliat of the Egyptians. 
They expressed not only more strength and independence, but 
more kindness and gentleness. 

I procured a lean sheep for eight piastres, and after Ach- 
met had chosen the best parts for my dinner, I gave the re- 
mainder to Eyoub and the Bisharees. The camels were driven 
down to the river, but only three drank out of the six. I took 
my seat in the shade of the tent, and looked at the broad blue 
current of the Nile for hours, without being wearied of the 
scene. Groups of tall Bisharees stood at a respectable dis- 
tance, gazing upon me, for a Frank traveller was no common 
sight. In the evening I attempted to reduce my desert tem- 
perature by a bath in the river, but I had become so sensitive 
to cold that the water made me shudder in every nerve, and it 
required a double portion of pipes and coffee to restore my 
natural warmth. 

I left Abou-Hammed at noon the next day, having been 
detained by some government tax on camels, which my Bisha- 
rees were called upon to pay. • Our road followed the river, occa- 
sionally taking to the Desert for a short distance, to cut off a 
bend, but never losing sight of the dark clumps of palms and 
the vivid coloring of the grain on the western bank. The 
scenery bore a very different stamp from that of Egypt. The 
colors were darker, richer and stronger, the light more intense 
and glowing, and all forms of vegetable and animal life pene- 
trated with a more full and impassioned expression of life. 
The green of the fields actually seemed to throb under the 
fiery gush of sunshine, and the palm leaves to thrill and trem- 
ble in the hot blue air. The people were glorious barbarians — ■ 



196 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

large, tall, full-limbed, with open, warm, intelligent faces and 
lustrous Hack eyes. They dress with more neatness than the 
Egyptian Fellahs, and their long hair, though profusely smear- 
ed with suet, is arranged with some taste and clothes their 
heads better than the dirty cotton skull-cap. Among those I 
saw at Abou-Hammed were two youths of about seventeen, 
who were wonderfully beautiful. One of them played a sort 
of coarse reed flute, and the other a rude stringed instrument, 
which he called a tambour. He was a superb fellow, with the 
purest straight Egyptian features, and large, brilliant, melting 
black eyes. Every posture of his body expressed a grace the 
most striking because it was wholly unstudied. I have never 
seen human forms superior to these two. The first, whom I 
named the Apollo Ababdese, joined my caravan, for the jour- 
ney to Berber. He carried with him all his wealth — a flute, a 
sword, and a heavy shield of hippopotamus hide. His features 
were as perfectly regular as the Greek, but softer and rounder 
in outline. His limbs were without a fault, and the light poise 
of his head on the slender neck, the fine play of his shoulder- 
blades and the muscles of his back, as he walked before me, 
wearing only a narrow cloth around his loins, would have 
charmed a sculptor's eye. He walked among my camel-dri- 
vers as Apollo might have walked among the other shepherds 
of King Admetus. Like the god, his implement was the flute ; 
he was a wandering minstrel, and earned his livelihood by play- 
ing at the festivals of the Ababcleha. His name was Eesa, the 
Arabic for Jesus. I should have been willing to take several 
shades of his complexion if I could have had with them his 
perfect ripeness, roundness and symmetry of body and limb. 
He told me that he smoked no tobacco and drank no ara- 



ENCAMPMENT ON THE NILE. 



197 



kee, but only water and milk — a true offshoot of the golden 
age! 





Abebdeb Flute and Tambour Players. 

We encamped for the night in a cluster of douru-palms, 
near the Nile. The soil, even to the edge of the millet-patch- 
es which covered the bank, was a loose white sand, and shone 
like snow under the moon, while the doum-leaves rustled with 
as dry and sharp a sound as bare boughs under a northern sky. 
The wind blew fresh, but we were sheltered by a little rise of 
land, and the tent stood firm. The temperature (72°) was 
delicious ; the stars sparkled radiantly, and the song of crickets 
among the millet reminded me of home. No sooner had we 
encamped than Eesa ran off to some huts which he spied in 
the distance, and told the natives that they must immediately 
bring all their sheep and fowls to the Effendi. The poor peo- 
ple came to inquire whether they must part with their stock, 
and were very glad when they found that we wanted nothing. 
I took only two cucumbers which an old man brought and 
hxunbly placed at my feet 



198 ■ JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The next morning I walked ahead, following the river hank, 
but the camels took a shorter road through the Desert, and 
passed me unobserved. After walking two hours, I sought for 
them in every direction, and finally came upon Ali, who was 
doing his best to hold my dromedary down. No sooner had I 
straddled the beast than he rose and set off on a swinging gal- 
lop to rejoin the caravan. During the day our road led along 
the edge of the Desert, sometimes in the sand and sometimes 
over gravelly soil, covered with patches of thorny shrubs. Until 
I reached the village of Abou-Hashym, in the evening, there 
was no mark of cultivation on the eastern bank, though I saw 
in places the signs of fields which had long since been desert- 
ed. I - passed several burying grounds, in one of which the 
guide showed me the grave of Mr. Melly, an English gentle- 
man who died there about a year previous, on his return to 
Egypt with his family, after a journey to Khartoum. His 
tomb was merely an oblong mound of unburnt brick, with a 
rough stone at the head and foot. It had been strictly re- 
spected by the natives, who informed me that large sums were 
given to them to keep it in order and watch it at night. They 
also told me that after his death there was great difEeulty in 
procuring a shroud. The only muslin in the neighborhood was a 
piece belonging to an old Shekh, who had kept it many years, in 
anticipation of his own death. It was sacred, having been sent 
to Mecca and dipped in the holy well of Zemzem. In this the 
body was wrapped and laid in the earth. The grave was in a 
dreary spot, out of sight of the river and surrounded by desert 
thorns. 

We had a strong north-wind all day. The sky was cloud- 
less, but a fine white film filled the air, and the distant moun- 



A WHITE ARAB. 199 

tains tad the pale, blue-gray tint of an English landscape. The 
Bisharees wrapped themselves closely in their mantles as they 
walked, hut Eesa only tightened the cloth around his loins, 
and allowed free play to his glorious limbs. He informed me 
that he was on his way to Berber to make preparations for his 
marriage, which was to take place in another moon. He and 
Hossayn explained to me how the Ababdehs would then come 
together, feast on camel's flesh, and dance their sword-dances. 
" I shall go to your wedding, too," I said to Eesa. " Will you 
indeed, Effendi ! " he cried, with delight : "then I shall kill 
my she-camel, and give you the best piece." I asked whether 
I should be kindly received among the Ababdehs, and Eyoub 
declared that the men would be glad to see me, but that the 
women were afraid of Franks. " But," said Achmet, " the 
Effendi is no Frank." "How is this ?" said Eyoub, turning 
to me. "Achmet is right," I answered ; "I am a white Arab, 
from India." "But do you not speak the Frank language, 
when you talk with each other?" "No," said Achmet, "we 
talk Hindustanee." " 0, praised be Allah ! " cried Hossayn, 
clapping his hands with joy : "praised be Allah, that you are 
an Arab, like ourselves ! " and there was such pleasure in the 
faces of all, that I immediately repented of having deceived 
them. They assured me, however, that the Ababdehs would 
not only admit me into their tribe, but that I might have the 
handsomest Ahabdiyeh that could be found, for a wife. Hos- 
sayn had already asked Achmet to marry the eldest of his two 
daughters, who was then eleven years old. 

I passed the last evening of the year 1851 on the bank of 
the Nile, near Abou-Hashym. There was a wild, green island 
in the stream, and reefs of black rock, which broke the current 



200 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

into rapids. The opposite shore was green and lovely, crown- 
ed with groups of palms, between whose stems I had glimpses 
of blue mountains far to the south and west. The tempera- 
ture was mild, and the air full of the aroma of mimosa blos- 
soms. When night came on I enjoyed the splendid moon and 
starlight of the tropics, and watched the Southern Cross rise 
above the horizon. The inhabitants of the village beat their 
wooden drums lustily all night, to. scare the hippopotami away 
from their bean-fields. My dream before waking was of an 
immense lion, which I had tamed, and which walked beside 
me — a propitious omen, said the Arabs. 

The morning was so cold that the Bisharees were very lan- 
guid in their movements, and even I was obliged to don my 
capote. Eesa helped the men in all the freedom of his naked 
limbs, and showed no signs of numbness. The village of 
Abou-Hashym extends for three or four miles along the river, 
and looked charming in the morning sunshine, with its bright 
fields of wheat, cotton and dourra spread out in front of the 
tidy clay houses. The men were at work among the grain, 
directing the course of the water, and shy children tended the 
herds of black goats that browsed on the thorns skirting the 
Desert. The people greeted me very cordially, and when I 
stopped to wait' for the camels an old man came running up to 
inquire if I had lost the way. The western bank of the river 
is still richer and more thickly populated, and the large town 
of Bedjem, capital of the Beyooda country, lies just opposite 
Abou-Hashym. After leaving the latter place our road swerv- 
ed still more from the Nile, and took a straight course over a 
rolling desert tract of stones and thorns, to avoid a very long 
curve of the stream. The air was still strong from the north, 



LOSS OF MY THERMOMETER. 201 

and the same gray vapor tempered the sunshine and toned 
down the brilliant tints of the landscape. 

We passed several small burying-grounds, in -which many 
of the graves were decked with small white flags stuck on 
poles, and others had bowls of water placed at the head — a 
custom for which I could get no explanation. Near El Bagh- 
eyr, where we struck the river again, we met two Bedouins, 
who had turned merchants and were taking a drove of camels 
to Egypt. One of them had the body of a gazelle which he 
had shot two days before, hanging at his saddle, and offered to 
sell to me, but the flesh had become too dry and hard for my 
teeth. Ali succeeded in buying a pair of fowls for three pias- 
tres, and brought me, besides, some doum-nuts, of the last 
year's growth. I could make no impression on them until the 
rind had been pounded with stones. The taste was like that of 
dry gingerbread, and when fresh, must be very agreeable. In the 
fields I noticed a new kind of grain, the heads of which resem- 
bled rice. The natives called it dooJihn, and said that it was even 
more nutritious than wheat or dourra, though not so palatable. 
. I signalized New- Year's Day, 1852, by breaking my ther- 
mometer, which fell out of my pocket as I was mounting my 
dromedary. It was impossible to replace it, and one point 
wherein my journey might have been useful was thus lost. 
The variations of temperature at different hours of the day 
were very remarkable, and on leaving Korosko I had com- 
menced a record which I intended to keep during the whole of 
my stay in Central Africa.* In the evening I found in the 

* The following record of the temperature, from the time of leaving 
Korosko to the date of the accident which deprived me of the thermom- 
9* 



202 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AERICA. 

Nile a fish about four feet long, which, had just been killed by 
a crocodile. It was lying near the water's edge, and as I de- 
scended the bank to examine it, two slender black serpents slid 
away from before my feet. 

We struck the tent early the next morning, and entered 
on the aJcaha, or pass of the Wady el-homar. (Valley of 
Asses.) It was a barren, stony tract, intersected with long 
hollows, which produced a growth of thorns and a hard, dry 
grass, the blades of which cut the fingers that attempted to 
pluck it. We passed two short ranges of low hills, which 
showed the same strata of coal-black shale, as in the Nubian 
Desert. The akaba takes its name from the numbers of wild 
asses which are found in it. These beasts are remarkably shy 
and fleet, but are sometimes killed and eaten by the Arabs. 
We kept a sharp look-out, but saw nothing more than their 
tracks in the sand. We met several companies of the village 

eter, is interesting, as it shows a variation fully equal to that of our own 
climate : 











7 a.m. 


12 m. 




2 p.m. 


Korosko, 




Dec, 


. 21st 


59° 


75° 




80° 


Desert, 




it 


22 


50° 


74° 




80° 


tc 




iC 


23 


55° 


75° 


(Bahrbela 


,Ma) 85° 


(( 




" 


24 


51° 


70° 




78° 


a 




St 


25 


54° 


78° 


t 


85° 


a 




" 


26 


60° 


91° 




100° 


« 




" 


2V 


55° 


— 


— 


95° 


« 




it 


28 


59° 


— 




90° 


Ahou Hammed " 


29 


61° 


— 




90° 


The Nile 




IC 


30 


59° 


— 




85° 


<« 




" 


31 


52° 


78° 




84° 


« 


Jan. 


1st, 1852 


41° 


70° 




68° 



ETHIOPIAN SCENERY. 203 

Arabs, travelling on foot or on donkeys. The women were 
unveiled, and wore the same cotton mantle as the men, reach- 
ing from the waist to the knees. They were all tolerably old, 
and, unlike the men, were excessively ugly. An Ababdeh, 
riding on his dromedary, joined company with us. He was 
naked to the loins, strongly and gracefully built, and sat erect 
on his high, narrow saddle, as if he and his animal were one — 
a sort of camel-centaur. His hair was profuse and bushy, but 
of a fine, silky texture, and " short Numidian curl," very dif- 
ferent from the crisp wool of the genuine negro. 

In the afternoon we reached the Nile again, at his Elev- 
enth Cataract. For a space of two or three miles his bed is 
filled with masses of black rock, in some places forming dams, 
over which the current roars in its swift descent. The eastern 
bank is desert and uninhabited, but the western delighted the 
eye with the green brilliance of its fields. In a patch of desert 
grass we started a large and beautiful gazelle, spotted like a 
fallow-deer. I rode towards it and approached within thirty 
yards before it moved away. At sunset we reached a village 
called Ginnaynetoo, the commencement of the Berber country 
The inhabitants, who dwelt mostly in tents of palm-matting, 
were very friendly. As I was lying in my tent, in the even- 
ing, two, who appeared to be the principal persons of the place, 
came in, saluted me with "Peace be with you!" and asked 
for my health, to which I replied : " Very good, Allah be 
praised ! " Each of them then took my hand in his, pressed it 
to his lips and forehead, and quietly retired. 

We resumed our march through a dry, rolling country, 
grown with thorns, acacias in flower, and occasional doum- 
trees. Beyond the Nile, whose current was no longer to be 



204 .TOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA 

seen, stretched the long mountain of Berber, which we first 
discerned the day previous, when crossing the rise of the Wa- 
dy el-homar. The opposite bank was a sea of vivid green, as 
far as the eye could reach. Near the water the bean and lu- 
pin flourished in thick clusters ; behind them extended fields 
of cotton, of a rich, dark foliage ; and still beyond, tall ranks 
of dourra, heavy with ripening heads. Island-like groups of 
date-trees and doum-palms studded this rich bed of vegetation, 
and the long, blue slope of the mountain gave a crowning 
charm to the landscape. As we approached the capital of 
Berber, the villages on our right became more frequent, but 
our path still lay over the dry plain, shimmering with the lakes 
of the mirage. TVe passed a score of huge vultures, which 
had so gorged themselves with the carcase of a camel, that 
they could scarcely move out of our way. Among then) were 
several white hawks, a company of crows, and one tall black 
stork, nearly five feet in height, which walked about with the 
deliberate pace of a staid clergyman. Flocks of quail rose 
before our very feet, and a large gray dove, with a peculiar 
cooing note, was very abundant on the trees. 

My shaytan of a guide, Eyoub, wanted to stop at a village 
called El Khassa, which we reached at two o'clock. El Me- 
kheyref, he said, was far ahead, and we could not get there ; he 
would give us a sheep for our dinner ; the Effendi must prove 
his hospitality (but all at the Effendi's expense), and many 
other weighty reasons — but it would not do. I ■ pushed on 
ahead, made inquiries of the natives, and in two hours saw be- 
fore me the mud fortress of El Mekheyref. The camel-men, 
who were very tired, from the long walk from Korosko, would 
willingly have stopped at El Khassa, but when I pointed out 



THE CARAVAN BROKEN UP. 205 

Berber, and Achniet told them they could not deceive me, for. 
I had the truth written in a book, they said not a word. 

"We entered the town, which was larger, cleaner and hand- 
somer than any place I had seen since leaving Siout. Ar- 
naout soldiers were mixed with the Arabs in the streets, and 
we met a harem of Cairene ladies taking a walk, under the 
escort of two eunuchs. One of them stopped and greeted us, 
and her large black eyes sparkled between the folds of her veil 
as she exclaimed, in great apparent delight : " Ah, I know you 
come from Cairo ! " I passed through the streets, found a 
good place for my tent on the high bank above the water, and 
by an hour before sunset was comfortably encamped. I gave 
the men their backsheesh — forty-seven piastres in all, with 
which they were well satisfied, and they then left for the tents 
of their tribe, about two hours distant. I gave Eesa some 
trinkets for his bride, which he took with " Grod reward 
you ! " pressed my hand to his lips, and then went with them. 



206 JOURKEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MY RECEPTION IN BERBER. 

4. Wedding — My Reception by the Military Governor — Achmet — The Bridegroom — A 
Guard— I am an American Bey — Keff— The Bey's Visit— The Civil Governor— 
About the Navy — The Priest's Visit — Riding in State— The Congolese Stallion — A. 
Merchant's House— The Town— Dinner at the Governor's — The Pains of Royalty— 
A Salute to the American Flag — Departure. 

I was sitting at my tent-door at dusk, after a luxurious dinner 
of fowls and melons, when we suddenly heard a great sound of 
drums and Arab singing, with repeated discharges of musket- 
ry. The people told us that a marriage was being celebrated, 
and proposed that I should go and take part in the festivities. 
I therefore partly resumed my Frank dress, and told Achmet 
that he must no longer represent me as a Turk, since, in the 
conquered countries of Soudan the ruling race is even more 
unpopular than the Franks. " Well, master," said he ; " but 
I must at least make you an American Bey, because some 
rank is necessary in these countries." He took a lantern, and 
we set out, in the direction of the noises. 

As we passed the mosque, & priest informed us that the 
wedding was at the Governor's house, and that the bridegroom 
was the son of a former Governor's wekeel, or deputy. The 



MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES. 207 

drums guided us to a spacious court-yard, at the door of which 
stood guards in festive dresses. The court was lighted by a 
large open brazier of charcoal, fastened on- the end of a high 
pole, and by various colored lanterns. Long benches were 
ranged across the central space, facing the Governor's man- 
sion, and upon them sat many of the inhabitants of the town, 
listening to the music. The Arnaout soldiers, in their pictu- 
resque dresses, were squatted around the walls, their yata- 
ghans and long guns gleaming in the moonlight. The musi- 
cians sat on a raised platform, beside the steps leading to the 
door. There were half a dozen drums, some Arab flutes, and 
a chorus of strong-lunged singers, who chanted a wild, barbaric 
epithalamium, in perfect time and accord. The people all sa- 
luted us respectfully, and invited us to enter. The Albanian 
guards ushered us into a lofty room, roofed with palm-logs, 
which were carefully chosen for their size and straightness. 
A broad, cushioned divan ran around two sides of the apart- 
ment. Here sat the military Governor, with his principal offi- 
cers, while richly-dressed soldiers stood in waiting. An im- 
mense glass lantern gave light to this striking picture. 

The Governor, who was called Yagheshir Bey (although 
he held the lower rank of a Sanjak), was an Albanian, and 
commander of the Egyptian troops in Berber and Shendy. 
He received me with great kindness, and made room for me 
beside him on the divan. He was a tall, stately man, about 
fifty years of age ; his face was remarkably handsome, with a 
mild, benevolent expression, and he had the manners of a fin- 
ished gentleman. On my left hand was one of his officers, 
also a tall, fur-capped Albanian. I presented both of the digni- 
taries with cigars, for which they seemed to have a great 



208 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

relish. Coffee soon appeared, served by negro slaves, in rich 
blue dresses, and then the Bey's shebook, with a mouth-piece 
studded with diamonds, was filled for me. The slaves present- 
ly returned, with large glass cups filled with delicious sherbet, 
which they offered upon gold-fringed napkins. Achmet, being 
seated on the other side of the Governor, was mistaken by the 
attendants for the American Bey, notwithstanding his dark 
complexion, and served first. I could not but admire the 
courtly ease of his manners, which belonged rather to the born 
son of a Pasha, than to the poor orphan boy of Luxor, indebt- 
ed only to his honesty, quick sense, and the kindness of an 
English lady, for a better fate than that of the common Fel- 
lahs of Egypt. Yet with all the respect which he knew so 
well how to command, his devotion to me, as a servant, was 
unchanged, and he was as unremitting in his attentions as if 
soul and body had been given him expressly for my use. 

The Bey, learning that I was bound for Khartoum, sent a 
soldier for the shekh of the harbor, whom he commanded, in 
my presence, to procure a boat for me, and see that it was 
ready to sail the next day. The only boats in this region are 
rough, open crafts, but the shekh promised to erect a tent of 
palm-mats on the poop, to. serve as a cabin. Soon after he 
left the bridegroom appeared, led by an attendant, as he was 
totally blind. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, and in 
his air there was a charming mixture of the bridegroom's dig- 
nity and the boy's bashfulness. He was simply, but very 
tastefully dressed, in a blue embroidered jacket, white silk 
shirt, white shawl fringed with gold, full white trowsers and 
red slippers. He was led to the Governor, kissed his hand, 
and begged him to ask me if he might not be allowed to have 



the bey's courtesy. 209 

dinner prepared for me. The officers asked me whether I 
knew of any remedy for his blindness, but as I found that the 
sight had been destroyed by cataract, I told them there was 
no help for him nearer than Cairo. The ceremonies were all 
over, and the bride, after the entire consummation of the nup- 
tials, had gone to her father's house, to remain four clays. 

The Bey, finding that I was not a merchant, asked Achmet 
what rank I held, and the latter answered that in my own 
country it was something between a Bey and a Pasha. Be- 
fore we left, three soldiers were sent down to the river, and, 
as I afterwards learned, remained all night, standing with 
whips over the poor sailors who were employed in removing 
the cargo from the hold of the vessel, which the shekh of the 
harbor had selected for me. The rais was threatened with a 
hundred lashes, unless he had every thing ready by the next 
day. On leaving, I gave a mccljid to the servants, as a gra 
tuity is expected on such occasions. The Bey sent me one of 
his Arnaouts to carry the lantern, and insisted on stationing a 
guard near my tent. Two soldiers came soon afterwards, who 
sat upon my camp-chests and smoked my tobacco until morn- 
ing. Many of the soldiers were slaves, who received only fif- 
teen piastres a month, beside their rations. The Arnaouts 
were paid one hundred and twenty-five piastres, and thirty-five 
piastres additional, provided they furnished their own equip- 
ments. As I pulled off my turban and threw myself on my 
mattress, I involuntarily contrasted my position with that of 
the previous evening. Then, I slept in the midst of a clus- 
ter of Arab huts, a simple Howadji, among camel-drivers. 
Now, I was an American Bey, in my tent overlooking the 
Nile, watched by a guard of honor sent me by the commander 



210 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of the military forces in Berber and Shendy. All honor to 
Ethiopian hospitality ! For here was at last the true Ethio- 
pia, beyond the confines of Nubia; beyond the ancient Capital 
of Queen Candace ; beyond, not only the first and second, but 
the eleventh cataract of the Nile, and not far distant from 
" the steep of utmost Axume." 

The morning brought with it no less pleasant experiences. 
Seated at the door of my tent, indolently smoking, lulled by 
the murmuring of the Nile and cheered by the brightness of 
the green sea that bathed his western shore, I enjoyed the first 
complete k£ff since leaving Egypt. The temperature was like 
that of an American June, and my pulse beat so full and warm, 
my whole body was so filled with a sense of health, of strength 
in repose, of pure physical satisfaction, that I could not be 
otherwise than happy. My pleasure was disturbed by an old 
Arab, who came up with two beautiful goats, which I supposed 
he wanted to sell, but when Achniet returned from the bazaar, 
I found that they were a present from the Bey. 

As I was sitting at breakfast, an hour later, I heard Ach- 
niet talking loudly with some one on the outside of the tent, 
and called to him to know what was the matter. He stated 
that an officer had just arrived to announce the Bey's approach, 
but that he had ordered him to go. back and say that I was at 
breakfast, and the Bey must not come for half an hour. "You 
have done a very rude thing," I said; for I felt annoyed that 
the Bey should receive such a message, as coming from me. 
" Don't be alarmed, master," he coolly replied; " the Bey is 
now certain that you are of higher rank than he." Fortunate- 
ly, I had a handsome tent, the best of tobacco and pure Mocha 
coffee, so that I could comply with the requisites of Eastern 



OFFICIAL VISITS, 211 

hospitality, in a manner worthy of my supposed rank. The 
tent was put in order, and I arranged a divan on one side, 
made of my carpet, mattress and capote. The two lantern- 
poles, bound together, formed a mast, which I planted at the 
door, and then run up the American flag. The preparations 
were scarcely completed before the Bey appeared, galloping up 
on a superb, jet-black stallion, with half a dozen officers in at- 
tendance. As he dismounted, I advanced to receive him. 
According to Arab etiquette, the highest in rank enters first, 
and true to Achmet's prediction, the Bey, after taking my 
hand, requested me to precede him. I declined, out of cour- 
tesy to him, and after a polite controversy on the subject, he 
passed his arm affectionately around my waist, and we went in 
side by side. Achmet had excellent coffee and sherbet in 
readiness, but the Bey preferred my cigars to the shebook. 
As he sat beside me on the divan, I thought I had rarely seen 
a nobler countenance. He had an unusually clear, large hazel 
eye, a long but not prominent nose, and the lines of fifty years 
had softened and subdued an expression which may have been 
fierce and fearless in his younger days. He was from a village 
near Parga, in Albania, and was delighted when I told him 
that not long previous, I had sailed past the shores of his 
native land. 

He had no sooner taken his leave than the Civil Governor, 
ad interim, Mustapha Kashif, arrived, attended by his chief 
secretary, Mahmoud Effendi. Mustapha was an Anatolian, 
small in stature and quite withered and wasted by the torrid 
climate of Berber. His skin had a dark unhealthy hue, and 
his eyes a filmy glare, which I attributed to other causes than 
the diseased liver of which he complained. He immediately 



212 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

asked for arakee, and when I told him that it was bad for the 
liver, said it was the only thing which did him good. Mah- 
moud Efiendi, who was a good-humored Turk, made himself 
quite at home. I showed them my sketches, with which they 
were greatly diverted. A remark of the Governor gratified 
me exceedingly, as it showed that all the attention I received 
was paid me, not on account of my supposed rank, but from 
the fact of my being the first American who had ever visited 
the place. " I have been in this country twenty-four years," 
said he, " and in all that time only some French and two or 
three German and English travellers have passed through. 
You are the first I have seen from Yenhee-Doonea. [This 
sounds very much like Yankee-Doodledom, but is in reality the 
Turkish for " New World."] You must not go home with an 
unfavorable account of us." He had once, when in Alexan- 
dria, visited an American man-of-war, which, it appeared, had 
left a strong impression upon his mind. After mentioning the 
circumstance, he asked me how many vessels there were in our 
Navy. I had mastered the Arabic language sufficiently to 
know the necessity of exaggeration, and answered, without hes- 
itation, that there were one hundred. " Oh no ! " said Mus- 
tapha, turning to Mahmoud, the Secretary : " His Excellen- 
cy is entirely too modest. I know very well that there are six 
hundred vessels in the American Navy ! " I had fallen far 
below the proper mark ; but Achmet tried to straighten the 
matter by saying that I meant one hundred ships-of-the-line, 
and did not include the frigates, sloops-of-war, brigs and 
corvettes. 

Before the Governor had finished his visit, there was a stir 
outside of the tent, and presently the Chief Mollah — the high- 



THE GOVERNOR'S STALLION. 213 

priest of the mosque of Berber — made his appearance. Ho 
was a tall, dark-shinned Arab of between fifty and sixty years 
of age, and wore a long robe of the color sacred to Mahomet, 
with a turban of the same, under which the ends of a scarf of 
white gauze, embroidered with Arabic characters in gold, hung 
on- both sides of his face. His manner was quiet and dignified, 
to a degree which I never saw excelled by any Christian di- 
vine. He refused the pipe, but took coffee and sherbet, hold- 
ing the former two or three times alternately to each eye, 
while he murmured a form of prayer. He was very much 
delighted with my sketches, and I was beginning to feel in- 
terested in his remarks, when the Governor's servant appear- 
ed, leading a splendid chesnut stallion, with a bridle of scarlet 
silk cord, and trappings of cloth of the same royal color. He 
was brought in order that I might take a ride through the city. 
" But," said I to Achmet, " I cannot go until this priest has 
left." " You forget your high rank, master ! " said the 
cunning dragoman ; " go without fear, and I will take charge 
of the priest." Without more ado, I took a hasty leave of the 
mollah, and swung myself into the saddle. The animal shot 
off like a bolt from a cross-bow, leaving the Governor to follow 
in my wake, on his favorite gray ass. On reaching the 
mosque, I waited for him, and we entered the bazaars to- 
gether. He insisted on my preceding him, and at his com- 
mand all the merchants rose and remained standing until we 
passed. All eyes were of course fixed upon me, and I had 
some difficulty in preserving a serious and dignified counte- 
nance, as I thought of my cracked nose and Abyssinian com- 
plexion. Two of the Governor's slaves attended me, and one 
of them, who had a remarkably insolent and scornful expres- 



214 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sion, was the only person who did not seem impressed by my 
presence. The fellow's face was disagreeable to me ; he was 
the death's-head at my banquet. 

The stallion was a noble beast, so full of blood and fire 
that it was worth a month's journey through the Desert to be- 
stride him. He was small, and his limbs were scarcely long 
enough for the breadth of his chest and the fulness of his 
flanks. He had, however, the slender head and brilliant eye 
of the Arab breed, and his powerful neck expressed a fine dis- 
dain of other horses. He was of the best Dongolese stock, 
but resembled in many points the famed Anatolian breed of 
Asia Minor. He pranced and caracoled impatiently as I 
forced him to accommodate his pace to that of the ignoble ass. 
"Let him run!" said the Governor, as we reached a broad 
open square near the outskirts of the city. I slackened the 
rein, and he dashed away with a swiftness that almost stopped 
my breath. I am but an ordinary rider, but owing to the 
Turkish saddle, had no difficulty in keeping a firm seat and 
controlling the powerful steed. "We visited the mud fortress 
of Berber, which is a square structure, with a bastion at each 
corner, having embrasures for three cannon, and the Governor 
gave me to understand that they made a mighty sound, every 
time they were fired.' He then took me to the house of a 
French merchant, with a name something like D'Arfou. The 
merchant was absent in Cairo, but a black slave gave us ad- 
mittance. We took seats in a cool portico, admired the 
Frenchman's handsome gray donkey and his choice cows, look- 
ed out the windows upon his garden, planted with fig, orange, 
banana and pomegranate trees, and were finally served with 
coffee, presented in heavy silver zerfs. A slave then appear- 



A EIDE THROUGH THE CITY. 215 

ed, bringing his child, a pretty boy of two years old, born of 
an Abyssinian mother. He refused to be taken into the Gov- 
ernor's arms, and contemplated me, his Frank relative, with 
much more satisfaction. M. D'Arfou's house — although the 
walls were mud, the floors gravel and the roof palm-logs — 
was cool, roomy and pleasant ; and for that region, where one 
cannot easily have marble pavements and jasper fountains, was 
even luxurious. 

We mounted again, and the Governor took me through the 
city, to its southern extremity. It is more than a mile in 
length, and contains about twenty thousand inhabitants. The 
houses are all of mud, which, though unsightly in appearance, 
is there as good as granite, and the streets are broad, clean, 
and unmolested by dogs. I was well pleased with the appear- 
ance of the place. The inhabitants are mostly Nubians, of the 
different tribes between Berber and Dongola, mixed with a 
few Ababdehs, Bisharees, and other Desert Arabs. Though 
scantily dressed, they seemed contented, if not with their mas- 
ters, at least with their condition. Among the crowd that 
gathered to see us, I recognized Eesa, arrayed in a new, snow- 
white garment, and looking like a bronze Ganymede. He 
gazed at me wistfully, as if uncertain whether he should dare 
to speak, but I hailed him at once with : " Salaamat, ya 
Eesa ! " and he replied proudly and joyfully. After our tour 
vvas over, the Governor took me to his house, which, after that 
of the Pasha, was the finest one in the place. His reception- 
room was cool, with a broad divan, upon which we stretched 
ourselves at ease, sharing the single pillow between us. The 
attendants were dressing in an adjoining room, and presently 
appeared in all the splendor of snow-white turbans and trow- 



216 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sers. I was presented with a pipe, and as a great treat, a bot- 
tle of the mastic cordial of Scio was brought. The G-overnor 
insisted on my drinking three small glasses of it, three being 
the fortunate number. At this juncture Achmet appeared, to 
my great relief, for my whole stock of Arabic was exhausted. 
We were about to leave, but the G-overnor declared that it 
was impossible. It would be disgraceful to him, should we 
not take dinner in his house, and in order that we might not 
be delayed, he ordered it to be served at once. I was willing 
enough to make use of this opportunity of partaking of an 
Arab dinner. First, a slave appeared, and gave each of us a 
napkin, which we spread over our knees. He was followed by 
another, who bore a brass ewer, and a pitcher from which he 
poured water over our hands. A small stand upholding a 
large circular piece of tin, was then placed before us. A cov- 
ered dish stood in the centre, and a rampart of thin wheaten 
cakes, resembling Mexican tortillas, adorned the circumference. 
The cover was removed, disclosing a thick soup, with balls of 
dough and meat. We took the ebony spoons, and now behold 
the Governor, Achmet and I dipping fraternally into the same 
bowl, and politely stirring the choice lumps into each other's 
spoons. Mustapha was in the most hilarious humor, but his 
four dark attendants stood before us as solemn as Death. I 
thought then, and still think, that they hated him cordial 1 y. 
The soup was followed by a dish of kibcibs, or small pieces of 
meat, fried in grease. These we picked out with our fingers, 
and then, tearing the wheat cakes into slices, sopped up the 
sauce. About ten different compounds of meat and vegetables 
followed, each unlike any thing I ever tasted before, but all 
quite palatable. The only articles I was able to detect in the 



DINNER WITH THE GOVERNOR. 217 

whole dinner, were mutton-cutlets, egg-plants and sour milk. 
Each dish was brought on separately, and we all three ate 
therefrom, either with spoons or fingers. When the repast was 
finished, water was brought again, and we washed our hands 
and quietly awaited the pipes and coffee. When we arose to 
leave, Achmet was about to give the customary medjid to the 
servants, but the Governor prevented him. Nevertheless, he 
found an opportunity as I was mounting, to slip it into the 
hand of the scornful slave, who took it without relaxing the 
scowl upon his features. I pranced back to my tent upon the 
chestnut stallion, from which I parted with more regret than 
from its owner. 

By this time, every thing was in readiness for my depar- 
ture. The sailors, who had worked all night with the whips 
of the Albanian soldiers hung over their backs (unknown to 
me, or I should not have permitted it), had brought the vessel 
to the bank below my tent, and the Bey had sent me his prom- 
ised letter to the Governor of Shendy. The pleasures of roy- 
alty were now over, and I had to deal with some of its pains. 
All the officers and servants who had been employed for my 
benefit expected backsheesh, and every beggar in the place 
came to taste the bounty of the foreign king. When Achmet 
went to the bazaars to purchase a few necessaries, he over- 
heard the people saying to one another, " That is the inter- 
preter of the strange king," and many of them rose and re- 
mained standing until he had passed. Ali, who had spent the 
whole day apparently in hunting for chickens and pigeons, but 
Eblis knew tor what in reality, was assailed on all sides with 
inquiries : " Who is this that has come among us ? What 
high rank does he possess, that he receives such honor ? " 
10 



218 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Ali, who had known me merely as a Howadji, was somewhat 
perplexed how to explain the matter, but got out of his diffi- 
culty by declaring that I was the son of the great king of all 
the Franks. 

I shall not soon forget that noble old Albanian, Yagheshir 
Bey. Achmet, who paid him a parting visit, and was received 
with the greatest kindness, conceived a strong affection for 
him. The Bey, on learning that I was ready to leave, sent 
word to me that he would bring a company of his Arnaouts 
down to the bank of the Nile, and salute my flag. " It is the 
first time that flag has been seen here," said he to Achmet, 
" and I must have it properly honored." And truly enough, 
when we were all embarked, and I had given the stars and 
stripes to the Ethiopian winds, a company of about fifty sol- 
diers ranged themselves along the high bank, and saluted the 
flag with a dozen rattling volleys. 

As I sailed away I returned the salute with my pistols, 
and the soldiers fired a parting volley after me for good luck 
on the voyage, but so recklessly that I heard the sharp whistle 
of the bullets quite close to the vessel. I felt more grateful to 
the Bey for this courtesy than for his kindness to myself. 
But Berber was soon left behind ; for the wind was fair, and 
bore me southward, deeper into Africa. 



FORTUNATE TRAVEL. 219 



CHAP TEE XVII. 

THE ETHIOPIAN NILE. 

Fortunate Travel — The America— Ethiopian Scenery — The Atbara River — Damor — A 
Melon Patch — Agriculture — The Inhabitants — Change of Scenery — The First Hip- 
popotamus — Crocodiles — Effect of My Map — The Eais and Sailors — Arabs in Ethio- 
pia — Ornamental Scars — Beshir — The Slave Bakhita — "We Approach MeroS. 

"Fair is that land as evening skies, 
And cool — though in the depth it lies 
Of burning Africa." — "Wordsworth. 

The voyage from Berber to Khartoum was another link in my 
chain of fortunate travel. The Ethiopian Nile seemed to me 
more beautiful than the Egyptian ; at least, the vegetation was 
richer, the air milder and sweeter, the water purer, and to 
crown all, the north-wind unfailing. Day and night there was 
a fresh, steady breeze, carrying us smoothly against the cur- 
rent, at the precise rate of speed which is most pleasant in a 
i^ailing craft — three to four miles an hour. The temperature 
was that of an American June, the nights deliciously mild and 
sweet, and the full moon shone with a splendor unknown in 
northern latitudes. I was in perfect health of body, and suf- 
fered no apprehension or anxiety for the future to disturb my 
happy frame of mind. 

El Mekheyref looked very picturesque in the soft clear 



220 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

light of the last afternoon hour, as I sailed away from it. The 
Bey's mansion and the mosque rose conspicuously above the 
long lines of clay walls, and groups of luxuriant date-trees in 
the gardens supplied the place of minarets and spires. Both 
shores, above the city, were in a high state of cultivation, and 
I passed many thriving villages before dust Even under the 
moon, the corn-fields on either hand were green and bright. I 
was installed in a temporary cabin, formed of my tent-canvas, 
stretched over a frame of palm-sticks, erected on the narrow 
poop-deck Achmet and Ali took possession of the hold, which 
they occupied as kitchen and store-room. The rai's, sailors, 
and the two beautiful sheep which the Bey gave me, were group- 
ed on the forecastle. On this first evening, the men, fatigued 
by their extra labors on my account, were ; silent, and I was 
left to the full enjoyment of the scene. The waves rippled 
pleasantly against the prow of the America ; the frogs and 
crickets kept up a concert along the shore, and the zikzak, or 
crocodile-bird, uttered his sharp, twittering note at intervals. 
Hours passed thus, before I was willing to close my eyes. 

The landscapes next morning were still more beautiful. 
The Nile was as broad as in Lower Egypt, flowing between 
banks of the most brilliant green. Long groves of palms be- 
hind the shore, shut out from view the desert tracts beyond, 
and my voyage all day was a panorama of the richest summer 
scenery. Early in the forenoon I passed the mouth of the At- 
bara, the ancient Astaboras, and the first tributary stream 
which the traveller meets on his journey from the Mediterra- 
nean. Its breadth is about one-third that of the main river, 
but the volume of water must be in a much smaller proportion. 
The water is a clear, bright green, and its junction with the 



THE ATBARA I1IVEH. 2'21 

darker Nile is distinctly marked. I could look up the Atbara 
for about a mile, to where it curved out of sight between high 
green banks covered with flowering mimosas. It was a charm- 
ing piece of river scenery, and I longed to follow the stream 
upward through the wild domains of the Hallengas and Ha- 
dendoas, through the forests and jungles of Takka and Sckan- 
galla, to where, an impetuous torrent, it foams through the 
Alpine highlands of Samen, under the eternal snows of Abba- 
Jaret and Amba-Hai. In Abyssinia it bears the name of Ta- 
cazze, but afterwards through the greater part of its course, is 
called the Atbara (and the country it waters, Dar Atbara), ex- 
cept at its junction with the Nile, where the natives name it 
El-bahr Mogran. 

Two or three hours later we reached the large town of Da- 
rner, which gives its name to the point of land between the 
two rivers. It is a quarter of a mile from the shore, and is a 
collection of mud buildings, scattered through a grove of sont 
trees. My sailors stopped to get some mats, and I climbed 
the bank to look at the place, but there was nothing in the 
view to tempt me to enter. During the day we stopped at an 
island in the river, to buy some vegetables. Two men were 
guarding a large patch of ripe melons and cucumbers, behind 
which extended fields of dourra, divided by hedges of a kind 
of shrub cypress, all overgrown with a purple convolvulus in 
flower, and a wild gourd-vine, with bright yellow blossoms. 
In wandering through the luxuriant mazes of vegetation, I 
came upon a dwelling of the natives — a nest or arbor, scooped 
out of a thick clump of shrubs, and covered with dry branches. 
It resembled the miljpas, or brush-huts of the Mexican ranche- 
ros. The only furniture was a frame of palm-sticks, serving 



222 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

as a divan, and four stones, arranged so as to form' a fire-place. 
On returning to the shore, I found Achmet in dispute with 
the two men. He had taken some melons, for which he offer- 
ed them two and a half piastres. They demanded more, hut 
as he had purchased melons for less in El Mekkeyref, he re- 
fused, and giving them the money, took the melons perforce. 
" Well," said they, " you are our masters, and we must sub- 
mit ;" hut they would sell no more to my sailors. The latter, 
however, procured a bowl of treacle, made of dates, and some 
sour milk, at another hut, and were contented therewith. The 
bean-fields along the shore had just been trampled down by a 
hippopotamus, whose huge foot-prints we saw in the soft mud 
near the water. 

All day, we sailed between shores of vegetation, of the 
ripest green. Both banks of the river, through this region, 
are studded with water-wheels, whose creaking ceases not by 
day nor by night. It was pleasant to see the strings of jars 
ascending and descending, and to hear the cool plashing of the 
precious blood of the Nile, as it poured into the branching 
veins which are the life of that teeming soil. The wheels 
were turned by oxen, driven by Dinka slaves, who sang vo- 
ciferous melodies the while, and the water was conveyed to 
fields distant from the river in the hollow trunks of the doum- 
tree. 

There, where I expected to sail through a wilderness, I 
found a garden. Ethiopia might become, in other hands, the 
richest and most productive part of Africa. The people are 
industrious and peaceable, and deserve better masters. Their 
dread of the Turks is extreme, and so is their hatred. I stop- 
ped one evening at a little village on the western bank. The 



SCENERY AND INHABITANTS. 223 

sailors were sent to the houses to procure fowls and eggs, and 
after a long time two men appeared, bringing, as they said, the 
only chicken in the place. They came up slowly, stooped and 
touched the ground, and then laid their hands on their heads, 
signifying that they were as dust before my feet. Achmet 
paid them the thirty paras they demanded, and when they saw 
that the supposed Turks had no disposition to cheat them, they 
went back and brought more fowls. Travellers who go by the 
land routes give the people an excellent character for hospital- 
ity. I was informed that it is almost impossible to buy any- 
thing, even when double the value of the article is tendered, 
but by asking for it as a favor, they will cheerfully give what- 
ever they have. 

When I crept out of my tent on the third niorning, the fea- 
tures of the scenery were somewhat changed. A blue chain 
of hills, which we had passed in the night, lay behind us, and 
a long, graceful mountain range rose on the right, broken by a 
pass which was cut through it at right angles to its course. 
The mountains retreated out of my horizon during the fore- 
noon, but in the afternoon again approached nearly to the 
water's edge, on the eastern bank. They were of a dark-red 
color, exhibiting a broken, mound-like formation. We passed 
several islands during the day — beds of glorious vegetation. 
The sakias were turning at intervals of a hundred yards or 
less, and the rustling fields of wheat and dourra seemed burst- 
ing with the fulness of their juices. I now began to notice 
that warm vermilion tinge of the clouds, which is frequently 
exhibited near the Equator, but is nowhere so striking as in 
Central Africa. Lying heavily along the horizon, in the warm 
hours of the day, they appeared to glow with a dead, smould- 



224 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ering fire, like brands which are soft white ashes on the out. 
side, but living coals within. 

On the same day I saw the first hippopotamus. The men 
discerned him about a quarter of a mile off, as he came up to 
breathe, and called my attention to him. Our vessel was run 
towards him, and the sailors shouted, to draw his attention : 
" How is your wife, old boy ?" " Is your son married yet ?" 
and other like exclamations. They insisted upon it that his 
curiosity would be excited by this means, and he would allow 
us to approach. I saw him at last within a hundred yards, but 
only the enormous head, which was more than three feet in 
breadth across the ears. He raised it with a tremendous snort, 
opening his huge mouth at the same time, and I thought I had 
never seen a more frightful-looking monster. He came up in 
our wake, after we had passed, and followed us for some time. 
Directly afterwards we spied five crocodiles on a sand-bank. 
One of them was of a grayish-yellow color, and upward of 
twenty feet in length. We approached quietly to within a few 
yards of them, when my men raised their poles and shouted. 
The beasts started from their sleep and dashed quickly into 
the water, the big yellow one striking so violently against our 
hull, that I am sure he went off with a head-ache. The natives 
have many superstitions concerning the hippopotamus, and re- 
lated to me some astonishing examples of his cunning and 
sagacity. Among others, they asserted that an Arab woman, 
at Abou-Hammed, went down to the river to wash some clothes, 
once upon a time. She laid the garments upon some smooth 
stones, and was engaged in trampling them with her feet, when 
a huge hippopotamus thrust his head out of the river, and after 
watching her for some time, made for the shore. The woman 



225 



fled in terror, leaving the clothes behind her ; whereupon the 
beast immediately took her place, and pounded away so vig- 
orously with his feet, that in a short time there was not left 
a fragment as big as your hand. 

On making inquiries for the ruins of Meroe, which we were 
then approaching, the rais only knew that there were some 
"beioot Jcadeem" (ancient houses) near the village of Bedjer- 
owiyeh, which we would probably reach that night. As I found 
on my map a name which nearly corresponded to that of the 
village, I had no doubt that this was Meroe, and gave orders 
that the boat should halt until the next day. The rais was 
greatly surprised at my knowing the names of all the towns 
along the river, seeing that I had never been there before. I 
showed him my map, and told him that I knew from it, the 
name of every mountain, every village, and every river, from 
Cairo to Abyssinia. The men crowded around and inspected 
it with the utmost astonishment, and when I pointed out to 
them the location of Mecca, and read them the names of all 
the villages as far as Khartoum, they regarded it with an ex- 
pression of reverential awe. " Wallah ! " exclaimed the rais : 
" this is truly a wonderful Frank ! " 

My rais, whose name was Bakhid, belonged, with his men, 
to the Nubian tribe of Mahass, below Bongola. They were 
tall, well-formed" men, with straight features and high cheek- 
bones, but the lips were thicker than those of the Arab tribes 
of Ethiopia. The latter are of almost pure Shemitic blood, 
and are descended from families which emigrated into Africa 
from the Hedjaz, seven or eight centuries ago. This accounts 
for the prevalence and purity of the Arab language in these 
regions. The descendants of the Djaaleyn, or tribe of Beni 
10* 



226 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Koreish, of Yemen, are still to be found in the country of the 
Atbara, and there are those in Ethiopia, who claim to be de- 
scendants from the line of the Abbasides and the Ommiades. 
There has been very little intermixture •with the negro races 
beyond Sennaar, who are looked upon as little better than wild 
beasts. The Arabic language is spoken from the Bed Sea to 
the borders of Bar-Fur and Bomou, and according to Burck- 
hardt, the prevalent idioms are those of Hedjaz, in Arabia. 
The distinction between the descendants of the ojd Arab stock, 
and those who, like the Ababdehs and Bisharees, belong to the 
native African races, is obvious to the most careless observer. 
The latter, however, must not be confounded with the Negro 
race, from which they differ still more widely. 

Bai's Bakhid had with him a son named Ibrahim — a bo\ 
of twelve. His head was shaven so as to leave a circular tuft 
of hair on the crown ; large silver rings hung from his ears, 
and each cheek was adorned with four broad sears — three hori- 
zontal, and one vertical, — which were produced by gashing the 
skin with a knife, and then raising the flesh so as to prevent 
the edges from uniting. All the Nubian tribes are scarred in 
the same way, frequently upon the breast and back as well as 
the face, and the number and position of the marks is generally 
a token of the particular tribe to which the person belongs. 
The slaves brought from the mountains of Fazogl, on the 
Abyssinian frontier, have a still greater profusion of these bar- 
baric ornaments. I had another Mahassee on board — a fellow 
of five and twenty, named Beshir, who kept all the others in a 
continual laugh with his droll sayings. He spoke the dialect 
of his tribe, not a word of which I could understand, but his 
face and voice were so comical, that I laughed involuntarily, 



THE 8-LAVE BAKHITA. 227 

whenever lie spoke. He was a graceless fellow, given to all 
sorts of debauchery, and was never so happy as when he could 
drink his fill of om hilbil, (the " mother of nightingales,") as 
the beer of the country is called, because he who drinks it, 
sings. 

Another curious character was an old woman named Bak- 
hita, a slave of the owner of the vessel, who acted as cook for 
the sailors. She sat squatted on the forward deck all day 
hideously and nakedly ugly, but performed her duties so regu 
larly and with such a contented face, laughing heartily at all 
the jokes which the men made at her expense, that I soon learn- 
ed to tolerate her presence, which was at first disgusting. She 
was a native of the mountains of Dar-Fur, but had been captur- 
ed by the slave-hunters when a child. She was in Shendy on 
the night when Ismail Pasha and his soldiers were burned to 
death by Mek Nemr, in the year 1822. But with all my ques- 
tioning, she could give no account of the scene, and it was a 
marvel that she remembered it at all. Life was to her a 
blank page, and what one day might write upon it, the next 
day erased. She sat from morning till night, grinding the 
dourra between two flat stones, precisely as the Mexican women 
grind their maize, occasionally rubbing her hands upon her 
woolly head to rid them of the paste. Her only trouble was 
my white sheep, which, in its search after food, would deliber- 
ately seize her mealy top-knots and begin to chew them. Her 
yells, at such times, were the signal for a fresh attack of Be- 
shir's drollery. Yet old, and ugly, and imbruted as she was, no 
Frankisk belle, whose bloom is beginning to wane; could have 
been more sensitive about her age. I was delighted to find 
this touch of vanity in her ; it was the only trace of feminine 



228 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

nature she ever betrayed. Beshir's declaration that she was a 
hundred and fifty years old, roused her to fury. She rose up, 
turned to me with a face so hideously distorted that I could 
not laugh at it, and yelled out : " Look at me, my lord ! and 
tell me if this son of a dog speaks the truth ! " " He lies, 
Bakhita," I answered ; " I should say that you were not more 
than thirty years old." The fury of her face was instantly re- 
placed by a simper of vanity which made it even more hideous; 
but from that time Bakhita considered me as her friend. Be- 
shir, who never missed an opportunity of hailing the people on 
shore, called out one day to a damsel who came down to the 
river for water : " Here is your sister on board." The ami- 
able maiden, not at all pleased with the comparison, rejoined : 
" Am I sister to a hyena ? " — a compliment, over which the 
old woman chuckled for a long time. 

The wind fell at sunset, when we were about seven miles 
from Meroe, and while the sailors moored the boat to the shore 
and built a fire to cook the head and ribs of my sheep, I climb- 
ed the bank, to get a sight of the country. As far as I could 
see, the soil was cultivated, principally with cotton and dourra. 
The cotton was both in flower and pod, and was of excellent 
quality. Achmet and I visited a water mill, under the charge 
of a Dinka slave, who came up humbly and kissed our hands 
We commanded him to go on with his work, when he took his 
seat on the beam of the wheel and drove his cows around, to 
the accompaniment of a loud, shrill song, which, at a distance 
harmonized strangely with the cry of the jackal, in the deserts 
away beyond the river. 



MEROE. 229 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE RUINS OP MEROE. 

Arrival at Bedjerowiyeh — The Ruins of Merot — "Walk Across the Plain— The Pyra- 
mids— Character of their Masonry — The Tower and Vault— Finding of the Trea- 
sure — The Second Group — More Ruins— Site of the City — Number of the Pyramids 
— The Antiquity of Meroe — Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization — The Caucasian 
Race — Reflections. 

A light breeze sprang up soon after midnight, and when I 
arose, at sunrise, we were approaching the village of Bedjer- 
owiyeh. By the time coffee was ready, the America was moor- 
ed at the landing-place, and Rai's Bakhid, who was familiar 
with all the localities, stood in waiting. Achmet, with Beshir 
and another sailor, also accompanied me. We crossed some 
fields of cotton and dookhn to the village, which was a cluster 
of tolculs, or circular huts of mud and sticks, in a grove of 
sont trees. The rais tried to procure a donkey for me, hut the 
people, who took me for an Egyptian, and appeared very timo- 
rous and humble, denied having any, although I saw two half- 
starved beasts among the trees. "We therefore set out on foot, 
toward a range of mountains, about five miles distant. 

The discovery of the ruins of Meroe is of comparatively 
recent, date, and it is only within a very short time that their 



230 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

true character and place in Ethiopian history have been satis- 
factorily established. Hoskins, Cailliaud and Ferlini were the 
first to direct the attention of antiquarians to this quarter, and 
the later and more complete researches of Lepsius leave room 
for little more to be discovered concerning them. It is re- 
markable that both Bruce and Burckhardt, who travelled by 
land from Berber to Shendy, failed to see the ruins, which 
must have been visible from the road they followed. The for- 
mer, in fact, speaks of the broken pedestals, carved stones and 
pottery which are scattered over the plain, and sagely says : 
" It is impossible to avoid risking a guess that this is the an- 
cient city of Meroe" — but he does not mention the groups of 
pyramids which are so conspicuous a feature in the landscape. 

Our path led over a plain covered with thorny shrubs at 
first, but afterwards hard black gravel, and we had not gone 
more than a mile before the rais pointed out the pyramids of 
the ancient Ethiopian city. I knew it only from its mention 
in history, and had never read any description of its remains ; 
consequently I was surprised to see before me, in the vapory 
morning air, what appeared to be the ruins of pylae and porti- 
cos, as grand and lofty as those of Karnak. Rising between 
us and the mountains, they had an imposing effect, and I ap- 
proached them with excited anticipations. As we advanced, 
however, and the morning vapors melted away, I found that 
they derived much of their apparent height from the hill upon 
which they are built, and that, instead of being the shattered 
parts of one immense temple, they were a group of separate 
pyramids, standing amid the ruins of others which have been 
completely destroyed. 

We reached them after a walk of about four miles. They 



THE PYRAMIDS. 231 

stand upon a narrow, crescent-shaped hill, which rises forty or 
fifty feet from the plain, presenting its convex front to the 
Nile, while toward the east its hollow curve embraces a small 
valley lying between it and the mountain range. Its ridge is 
crowned with a long line of pyramids, standing so close to each 
other that their bases almost meet, but presenting no regular 
plan or association, except in the direction of their faces. None 
of them retains its apex, and they are all more or less ruined, 
though two are perfect to within a few courses of the top. I 
climbed one of the highest, from which I could overlook the 
whole group, as well as another cluster, which crowned the 
summit of a low ridge at the foot of the mountains opposite. 
Of those among which I stood, there were sixteen, in different 
degrees of ruin, besides the shapeless stone-heaps of many 
more. They are all built of fine red sandstone, in regular 
courses of masonry, the spaces of which are not filled, or cased, 
as in the Egyptian pyramids, except at the corners, which are 
covered with a narrow hem or moulding, in order to give a 
smooth outline. The stones are about eighteen inches high, 
and the recession of each course varies from two to four inches, 
so that the height of the structure is always much greater than 
the breadth of the base. A peculiarity of these pyramids is, 
that the sides are not straight but curved lines, of different 
degrees of convexity, and the breadth of the courses of stone 
is adjusted with the utmost nicety, so as to produce this form. 
They are small, compared with the enormous piles of G-izeh 
and Dashoor, but singularly graceful and elegant in appearance. 
Not one of the group is more than seventy feet in height, nor 
when complete could have exceeded one hundred. 

All or nearly all have a small chamber attached to the ex- 



232 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

terior, exactly against the centre of their eastern sides, but no 
passage leading into the interior ; and from the traces of Dr. 
Lepsius's labors, by which I plainly saw that he had attempt- 
ed in vain to find an entrance, it is evident that they are mere- 
ly solid piles of masonry, and that, if they were intended as 
tombs, the bodies were deposited in the outer chambers. Some 
of these chambers are entire, except the roof, and their walk 
are profusely sculptured with hieroglyphics, somewhat blurred 
and worn down, from the effect of the summer rains. Their 
entrances resembled the doorways of temples, on a miniature 
scale, and the central stones of two of them were sculptured 
with the sacred winged globe. I saw on the jamb of another 
a figure of the god Horus. The chambers were quite small, 
and not high enough to allow me to stand upright. The sculp- 
tures have a very different character from those in the tombs 
of Thebes, and their resemblance to those of the Ptolemaic 
period was evident at the first glance. The only cartouches of 
monarchs which I found were so obliterated that I could not 
identify them, but the figure of one of the kings, grasping in 
one hand the hair of a group of captives, while with the other 
he lifts a sword to slay them, bears a striking resemblance to 
that of Ptolemy Euergetes, on the pylon of the temple at 
Edfou. Many of the stones in the vast heaps which lie scat- 
tered over the hills, are covered with sculptures. I found on 
some the winged globe and scarabeiis, while others retained the 
scroll or fillet which usually covers the sloping corners of a 
pylon. On the northern part of the hill I found several blocks 
of limestone, which exhibited a procession of sculptured figures 
brilliantly colored. 

The last structure on the southern extremity of the hill is 



THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE. 233 

rather a tower than a pyramid, consisting of a high base or 
foundation, upon which is raised a square building, the corners 
presenting a very slight slope towards the top, which is cover- 
ed with ruins, indicating that there was originally another and 
narrower story upon it. When complete, it must have borne 
considerable resemblance to the Assyrian towers, the remains 
of which are found at Nineveh. On this part of the hill there 
are many small detached chambers, all facing the east, and the 
remains of a large building. Here Lepsius appears to have 
expended most of his labors, and the heaps of stone and rub- 
bish he has left behind him prevent one from getting a very 
clear idea of the original disposition of the buildings. He has 
quarried one of the pyramids down to its base, without finding 
any chamber within or pit beneath it. My rais, who was at a 
loss to comprehend the object of my visit, spoke of Lepsius as a 
great Frank astrologer, who had kept hundreds of the people at 
work for many days, and at last found in the earth a multitude 
of chickens and pigeons, all of solid gold. He then gave the 
people a great deal of backsheesh and went away, taking the 
golden fowls with him. The most interesting object he has 
revealed is a vaulted room, about twenty feet long, which the 
rais pointed out as the place where the treasures were found. 
It is possible that he here referred to the discoveries made 
about twenty years ago by Ferlini, who excavated a great 
quantity of rings and other ornaments — Greek and Roman, as 
well as Ethiopian — which are now in the Museum at Berlin. 
The ceiling of this vault is on the true principle of the arch, 
with a keystone in the centre, which circumstance, as well as 
the character of the sculptures, would seem to fix the age of 
the pyramids at a little more than two thousand years. 



234 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL &.ERICA. 

I took a sketch of this remarkable cluster of ruins from 
their northern end, and afterwards another from the valley he- 
low, whence each pyramid appears distinct and separate, no 
one covering the other. The rai's and sailors were puzzled 
what to make of my inspection of the place, but finally con- 
cluded that I hoped to find a few golden pigeons, which the 
Frank astrologer had not carried away. I next visited the 
eastern group, which consists of ten pyramids, more or less di- 
lapidated, and the ruined foundations of six or eight more. 
The largest, which I ascended, consists of thirty-five courses 
of stone, and is about fifty-three feet in height, eight or ten 
feet of the apex having been hurled down. Each side of the 
apex is seventeen paces, or about forty-two feet long, and the 
angle of ascent is consequently much greater than in the pyra- 
mids of Egypt. On the slope of the hill are the substructions 
of two or three large buildings, of which sufficient remains to 
show the disposition of the chambers and the location of the 
doorways. Towards the south, near where the valley inclosed 
between the two groups opens upon the plain, are the remains 
of other pyramids and buildings, and some large, fortress-like 
ruins are seen on the summits of the mountains to the East. 
I would willingly have visited them, but the wind was blowing 
fresh, and the rai's was impatient to get back to his vessel. 
Many of the stones of the pyramids are covered with rude at- 
tempts at sculpturing camels and horses; no doubt by the 
Arabs, for they resemble a school-boy's first drawings on a 
slate — straight sticks for legs, squares for bodies, and triangles 
for humps. 

Leaving the ruins to the company of the black goats that 
were browsing on the dry grass, growing in bunches at their 



SITE OF THE ANCIENT CITF. 235 

eastern base, I walked to another group of pyramids, which lay 
a mile and a half to the south-west, towards the Nile. As we 
approached them, a herd of beautiful gray gazelles started 
from among the stones and bounded away into the Desert. 
" These were the tents of the poor people," said the rais, 
pointing to the pyramids : " the Frank found no golden pi- 
geons here." They were, in fact, smaller and more dilapidated 
than the others. Some had plain burial chambers attached to 
their eastern sides, but the sculptures were few and insignifi- 
cant. There were sixteen in all, more or less ruined. Scat- 
tering mounds, abounding with fragments of bricks and build- 
ing-stones, extended from these ruins nearly to the river's bank, 
a distance of more than two miles; and the foundations of 
many other pyramids might be seen among them. The total 
number of pyramids in a partial state of preservation — some 
being nearly perfect, while a few retained only two or three of 
the lower courses — which I counted on the site of Meroe, was 
forty-two. Besides these, I noticed the traces of forty or 
fifty others, which had been wholly demolished. The entire 
number, however, of which Meroe could boast, in its prime, 
was one hundred and ninety-six. The mounds near the 
river, which cover an extent of between one and two miles, 
point out the site of the city, the capital of the old Hierarchy 
of Meroe, and the pyramids are no doubt the tombs of its 
kings and priests. It is rather singular that the city has been 
so completely destroyed, as the principal spoilers of Egypt, 
the Persians, never penetrated into Ethiopia, and there is no 
evidence of the stones having been used to any extent by the 
Arabs, as building materials. 

The examination of Meroe has solved the doubtful ques- 



236 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

tion of an Ethiopian civilization anterior to that of Egypt 
Hoskins and Cailliaud, who attributed a great antiquity to the 
ruins, were misled by the fact, discovered by Lepsius, that the 
Ethiopian monarchs adopted as their own, and placed upon 
their tombs the nomens of the earlier Pharaohs. It is now 
established beyond a doubt, that, so far from being the oldest, 
these are the latest remains of Egyptian art ; their inferiority 
displays its decadence, and not the rude, original type, whence 
it sprang. Starting from Memphis, where not only the oldest 
Egyptian, but the oldest human records yet discovered, are 
found, the era of civilization becomes later, as you ascend the 
Nile. In Nubia, there are traces of Thothmes and Amunoph 
III., or about fifteen centuries before the Christian era; at 
Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, we cannot get beyond 
King Tirhaka, eight centuries later ; while at Meroe, there is 
no evidence which can fix the date of the pyramids earlier than 
the first, or at furthest, the second century before Christ. 
Egypt, therefore, was not civilized from Ethiopia, but Ethio- 
pia from Egypt. 

The sculptures at Meroe also establish the important fact 
that the ancient Ethiopians, though of a darker complexion 
than the Egyptians (as they are in fact represented, in Egyp- 
tian sculpture), were, like them, an offshoot of the great Cau- 
casian race.* Whether they were originally emigrants from 

* In the Letters of Lepsiiis. which were not published until after 
my return from Africa, I find the following passage, the truth of which 
is supported by all the evidence we possess: 'The Ethioj)ian name 
comprehended much that was dissimilar, among the ancients. The an- 
cient population of the whole Nile Valley as far as Khartoum, and per- 
haps, also, along the Blue River, as well as the tribes of the Desert to 



THE CAUCASIAN RACE IN ETHIOPIA. 237 

Northern India and the regions about Cashmere, as the Egyp- 
tians are supposed to have been, or, like the Beni Koreish at 
a later period, crossed over from the Arabian Peninsula, is not 
so easily determined. The theory of Pococke and other 
scholars, based on the presumed antiquity of Meroe, that here 
was the first dawning on African soil of that earliest Indian 
Civilization, which afterwards culminated at Memphis and 
Thebes, is overthrown ; but we have what is of still greater 
significance — the knowledge that the highest Civilization, in 
every age of the world, has been developed by the race to 
which we belong. 

I walked slowly back to the boat, over the desolate plain, 
striving to create from those shapeless piles of ruin the splen- 
dor of which they were once a part. The sun, and the wind, 
and the mountains, and the Nile, were what they had ever 
been ; but where the kings and priests of Meroe walked in 
the pomp of their triumphal processions, a poor, submissive 
peasant knelt before me with a gourd full of goat's milk ; and 
if I had asked him when that plain had been inhabited, he 
would have answered me, like Chidhar, the Prophet : "As 
thou seest it now, so has it been for ever ! " 

the east of the Nile, and the Abyssinian nations, were in former times 
probably even more distinctly separated from the negroes «2ian new, and 
belonged to the Caucasian Race " 



238 



JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 




Moonlight on the Ethiopian Nile. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 



ETHIOPIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. 



Tho Landscapes of Ethiopia— My Evenings beside the Nile— Experiences of the Ara- 
bian Nights— The Story of the Sultana Zobeide and the Wood-cutter— Character 
of the Arabian Tales — Religion. 

" For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Al-Easchid." — Tejjntson. 

With nay voyage on the Ethiopian Nile a thread of romance 
was woven, which, in the Oriental mood that had now become 
native to me, greatly added to the charm of the journey. My 
nio-hts' entertainments were better than the Arabian. The 
moon was at the full, and although, during the day, a light 
north-wind filled my sails, it invariably fell calm at sunset, 



EVENING ON THE NILE. 239 

and remained so for two or three hours. During the after- 
noon, I lay stretched on my carpet on the deck, looking 
through half-closed eyes on the glittering river and his banks. 
The western shore was one long bower of Paradise — so green, 
so bright, so heaped with the deep, cool foliage of majestic 
sycamores and endless clusters of palms. I had seen no such 
beautiful palms since leaving Minyeh, in Lower Egypt. 
There they were taller, but had not the exceeding richness and 
glory of these. The sun shone hot in a cloudless blue heaven, 
and the air was of a glassy, burning clearness, like that which 
dwells in the inmost heart of fire. The colors of the landscape 
were as if enamelled on gold, so intense, so glowing in their in- 
toxicating depth and splendor. When, at last, the wind fell — 
except a breeze just strong enough to shake the creamy odor 
out of the purple bean-blossoms — and the sun went down in a 
bed of pale orange light, the moon came up the other side of 
heaven, a broad disc of yellow fire, and bridged the glassy 
Nile with her beams. 

At such times, I selected a pleasant spot on the western 
bank of the river, where the palms were loftiest and most 
thickly clustered, and had the boat moored to the shore. 
Achmet then spread my carpet and piled my cushions on the 
shelving bank of white sand, at the foot of the trees, where, as 
I lay, I could see the long, feathery leaves high above my 
head, and at the same time look upon the broad wake of the 
moon, as she rose beyond the Nile. The sand was as fine and 
soft as a bed of down, and retained an agreeable warmth from 
the sunshine which had lain upon it all day. As we rarely 
halted near a village, there was no sound to disturb the balmy 
repose of the scene, except, now and then, the whine of a jackal 



240 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

prowling along the edge of the Desert. Achmet crossed his 
legs beside me on the sand, and Ali, who at such times had 
special charge of my pipe, sat at my feet, ready to replenish it 
as often as occasion required. My boatmen, after gathering dry 
palm-leaves and the resinous branches of the mimosa, kindled 
a fire beside some neighboring patch of dooTcIm, and squatted 
around it, smoking and chatting in subdued tones, that their 
gossip might not disturb my meditations. Their white tur- 
bans and lean dark faces were brought out in strong relief 
by the red fire-light, and completed the reality of a picture 
which was more beautiful than dreams. 

On the first of these evenings, after my pipe had been filled 
for the third time, Achmet, finding that I showed no disposi- 
tion to break the silence, and rightly judging that I would 
rather listen than talk, addressed me. " Master," said he, " I 
know many stories, such as the story-tellers relate in the cof- 
fee-houses of Cairo. If you will give me permission, I will 
tell you some which I think you will find diverting.'* " Ex- 
cellent ! " said I ; " nothing will please me better, provided 
you tell them in Arabic. This will be more agreeable to both 
of us, and whenever I cannot understand your words, I will 
interrupt you, and you shall explain them as well as you can, 
in English." He immediately commenced, and while those 
evening calms lasted, I had such a living experience of the 
Arabian Nights, as would have seemed to me a greater marvel 
than any they describe, had it been foreshown to my boyish 
vision, when I first hung over the charmed pages. There, in 
my African mood, the most marvellous particulars seemed 
quite real and natural, and I enjoyed those flowers of Eastern 
romance with a zest unknown before. After my recent recep- 



EXPERIENCES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 241 

tion, as a king of the Franks, in the capital of Berber, it was 
not difficult to imagine myself Shahriar, the Sultan of the In- 
dies, especially as the moon showed me my turbaned shadow 
on the sand. If the amber mouth-piece of my pipe was no + 
studded with jewels, and if the zerf which held my coffee-cup 
was brass instead of gold, it was all the same by moonlight. 
Achmet, seated on the sand, a little below my throne, was 
Sheherazade, and Ali, kneeling at my feet, her sister, Dinar- 
zade ; though, to speak candidly, my imagination could not 
stretch quite so far. In this respect, Shahriar had greatly the 
advantage of me. I bitterly felt the difference between my 
dusky vizier, and his vizier's daughter. Nor did Ali, who lis- 
tened to the stories with great interest, expressing his satisfac- 
tion occasionally by a deep guttural chuckle, ever surprise me 
by saying : "If you are not asleep, my sister, I beg of you to 
recount to me one of those delightful stories you know." 

Nevertheless, those nights possessed a charm which sepa- 
rates them from all other nights I have known. The stories 
resembled those of the Arabian tale in being sometimes pro 
longed from one day to another. One of them, in fact, was 
" Ganem, the Slave of Love," but, as told by Achmet, differ- 
ing slightly from the English version. The principal story, 
however, was new to me, and as I am not aware that it has ever 
been translated, I may be pardoned for telling it as it was told 
to me, taking the liberty to substitute my own words for Ach- 
met's mixture of Arabic and English. I was too thoroughly 
given up to the pleasant illusion, to note down the story at the 
time, and I regret that many peculiarities of expression have 
escaped me, which then led me to consider it a genuine product 
of the age which produced the Thousand and One Nights. 
11 



242 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

" You already know, my Master," Achmet began, " that 
many hundred years ago all the people of Islam were governed 
by a caliph, whose capital was Baghdad, and I doubt not that 
you have heard of the great Caliph, Haroun Al-Raschid, who 
certainly was not only the wisest man of his day, but the 
wisest that has been known since the clays of our Prophet, 
Mohammed, whose name be exalted ! It rarely happens that 
a wise and great man ever finds a wife, whose wisdom is any 
match for his own ; for as the wise men whom Allah sends 
upon the earth are few, so are the wise women still fewer. 
But herein was the Caliph favored of Heaven. Since the clays 
of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, whom even the prophet Solo- 
mon could not help but honor, there was no woman equal in 
virtue or in wisdom to the Sultana Zubeydeh (Zobeide). The 
Caliph never failed to consult her on all important matters, 
and her prudence and intelligence were united with his, in the 
government of his great empire, even as the sun and moon are 
sometimes seen shining in the heavens at the same time. 

■' But do not imagine that Haroun Al-Baschid and the 
Sultana Zubeydeh were destitute of faults. None except the 
Prophets of God — may their names be extolled for ever ! — were 
ever entirely just, or wise, or prudent. The Caliph was sub- 
ject to fits of jealousy and mistrust, which frequently led him 
to commit acts that obliged him, afterwards, to eat of the bit- 
ter fruit of repentance ; and as for Zubeydeh, with all her 
wisdom she had a sharp tongue in her head, and was often so 
little discreet as to say things which brought upon her the dis- 
pleasure of the Commander of the Faithful. 

" It chanced that, once upon a time, they were both seated 
in a window of the hareem, which overlooked one of the streets 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 243 

of Baghdad. The Caliph was in an ill-humor, for a beautiful 
Georgian slave whom his vizier had recently brought him, had 
disappeared from the harem, and he saw in this the work of 
Zubeydek, who was always jealous of any rival to her beauty. 
Now as they were sitting there, looking down into the street, 
a poor wood-cutter came along, with a bundle of sticks upon 
his head. His body was lean with poverty, and his only 
clothing was a tattered cloth, bound around his waist. But; 
the most wonderful thing was, that in passing through the 
wood where he had collected his load, a serpent had seized 
him by the heel, but his feet were so hardened by toil that 
they resembled the hoofs of a camel, and he neither felt the 
teeth of the serpent, nor knew that he was still dragging it 
after him as he walked. The Caliph marvelled when he be- 
held this, but Zubeydeh exclaimed : ' See, Commander of 
the Faithful ! there is the man's wife ! ' ' What ! ' exclaim- 
ed Haroun, with sudden wrath : ' Is the wife then a serpent 
to the man, which stings him none the less because he does not 
feel it ? Thou serpent, because thou hast stung me, and be- 
cause thou hast made sport of the honest poverty of that poor 
creature, thou shalt take the serpent's place ! ' Zubeydeh an- 
swered not a word, for she knew that to speak would but in- 
crease the Caliph's anger. Haroun clapped his hands thrice, 
and presently Mesrour, his chief eunuch, appeared. ' Here, 
Mesrour ! ' said he, ' take this woman with thee, follow yonder 
wood-cutter, and present her to him as his wife, whom the Ca- 
liph hath ordered him to accept.' 

"• Mesrour laid his hands upon his breast and bowed his head, 
in token of obedience. He then beckoned to Zubeydeh, who 
rose, covered herself with a veil and a feridjee, such as is worn 



244 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

by the wives of the poor, and followed him. When they had 
overtaken the wood-cutter, Mesrour delivered to him. the mes 
sage of the Caliph, and presented to him the veiled Zubeydeh. 
' There is no Grod but God ! ' said the poor man ; ' but how 
can I support a wife — I, who can scarcely live by my own la- 
bors?' 'Dost thou dare to disobey the Commander of the 
Faithful ? ' cried Mesrour, in such a savage tone, that the man 
trembled from head to foot ; but Zubeydeh, speaking for the 
first time, said : ' Take me with thee, Man ! since it is the 
Caliph's will. I will serve thee faithfully, and perhaps the 
burden of thy poverty may be lightened through me.' The 
man thereupon obeyed, and they proceeded together to his 
house, which was in a remote part of the city. There were but 
two miserable rooms, with a roof which was beginning to fall in, 
from decay. The wood-cutter, having thrown down his bundle, 
went out to the bazaar, purchased some rice and a little salt, 
and brought a jar of water from the fountain. This was all he 
could afford, and Zubeydeh, who had kindled a fire in the 
mean time, cooked it and placed it before him. But when he 
would have had her raise her veil and sit down to eat with him, 
she refused, saying : ' I have promised that I shall not increase 
the burden of thy poverty. Promise me, in return, that thou 
wilt never seek to look upon my face, nor to enter that room, 
which I have chosen for my apartment. I am not without 
learning, Man ! and if thou wilt respect my wishes, it shall 
be well for thee.' 

" The wood-cutter, who was not naturally deficient in intel- 
ligence, perceived from the words of Zubeydeh that she was a 
superior person, and, judging that he could not do better than 
to follow her counsel, promised at once all that she desired, 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 246 

She then declared, that as she intended to take charge of his 
household, he must give to her, every evening, all the money 
he had received for his wood during the day. The man con- 
sented to this likewise, produced a handful of copper coins, 
which altogether amounted to only one piastre — but you must 
know, my master, that a piastre, in the days of Haroun Al- 
Kaschid, was four or five times as much as it is now-a-days 
Thus they lived together for several weeks, the wood-cutter 
going to the forest every day, and paying his gains every night 
into the hands of Zubeydeh, who kept his miserable house clean 
and comfortable and prepared his food. She managed things 
with so much economy that she was enabled to save two paras 
every day, out of the piastre which he gave her. When she 
had amassed twenty piastres in this way, she gave them to the 
wood-cutter, saying : ' Go now to the market and buy thee an 
ass with this money. Thou canst thus bring home thrice as 
much wood as before, and the ass can subsist upon the grass 
which he finds in the forest, and which costs thee nothing.' 
' By Allah ! ' exclaimed the wood-cutter ; f thou art a won- 
derful woman, and I will obey thee in every thing.' 

" He forthwith did as Zubeydeh ordered, and was now en- 
abled to give her three or four piastres every evening. She 
presented him with a more decent garment, and added butter 
to his pillau of rice, but still preserved such a strict economy, 
that in a short time he was master of three asses instead of 
one, and was obliged to hire a man to assist him in cutting- 
wood. One evening, as the asses came home with their loads, 
Zubeydeh remarked that the wood gave out a grateful fra- 
grance, like that of musk or ambergris, and upon examining it 
more closely, she found that it was a most precious article— 



246 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

in fact, that it had been cnt from one of those spicy trees which 
sprang up where the tears of Adam fell upon the Earth, as he 
bewailed his expulsion from Paradise. For at that time the 
juices of the fruits of Paradise still remained in his body, and 
his tears were flavored by them — which was the cause of all 
the spices that grow in the lands of Serendib and India. Zu- 
beydeh asked of the wood-cutter : ' To whom dost thou sell this 
wood ?' and from his answer she found that it was all purchased 
by some Jewish merchants, who gave, him no more for it than 
for the common wood with which she cooked his rice. ' The 
accursed Jews!' she exclaimed: c Go thou to them immedi- 
ately, and threaten to accuse them before the Cadi of defraud- 
ing a son of the Faith, unless they agree to pay thee for this 
wood henceforth, twelve times as much as they have paid 
before ! ' 

" The man lost no time in visiting the Jewish merchants, 
who, when they saw that their fraud had been discovered, were 
greatly alarmed, and immediately agreed to pay him all that 
he demanded. The wood-cutter now brought home every 
night three donkey-loads of the precious wood, and paid to 
Zubeydeh from one to two hundred piastres. She was soon 
able to purchase a better house, where she not only gave the 
man more nourishing food, but sent for a teacher to instruct 
him how to read and write. He had so improved in appear- 
ance by this time, and had profited so well by the wise conver- 
sation of Zubeydeh, that he was quite like another person, and 
those who had known him in his poverty no longer recognized 
him. For this reason, the Caliph, who soon repented of his 
anger towards Zubeydeh and made every effort to recover her, 
was unable to find any trace of him. Mesrour sought day and 



THE SULTANA AND THE 'WOOD-CUTTER. 24*7 

night through the streets of Baghdad, but as Zubeydeh never 
left the wood-cutter's house, all his search was in vain, and the 
Caliph was like one distracted. 

" One day, as the wood-cutter was on his way to the forest, 
he was met by three persons, who desired to hire his asses for 
the day. ' But,' said he, ' I make my living from the wood 
which the asses carry to the city.' ' What profit do you make 
upon each load ? ' asked one of the men. ' If it is a good 
load, I often make fifty piastres,' answered the wood-cutter. 
1 Well,' said the men, ' we will give you two hundred pias- 
tres as the hire of each ass, for one day.' The wood-cutter, 
who had not expected such an extraordinary offer, was about 
to accept it at once, when he reflected that he had obeyed in 
all things the advice of Zubeydeh, and ought not to take such 
a step without her consent. He thereupon requested the men 
to wait while he returned home and consulted his wife. ' You 
have done right, my lord ! ' said Zubeydeh : ' I commend 
your prudence, and am quite willing that you should accept 
the offer of the men, as the money will purchase other asses 
and repay you for the loss of the day's profit, if the persons 
should not return.' 

" Now the three men were three celebrated robbers, who had 
amassed a vast treasure, which they kept concealed in a cave 
in one of the neighboring mountains. They hired the donkeys 
in order to transport this treasure to a barque in which they 
had taken passage to Bassora, where they intended to estab- 
lish themselves as rich foreign merchants. But Allah, who 
governs all things, allows the plans of the wicked to prosper 
for a time, only that he may throw them into more utter ruin 
at the last. The robbers went to their secret cave with the 



248 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFEICA. 

donkeys and loaded them with all their spoils — great sacks of 
gold, -of rubies, diamonds and emeralds, which the beasts were 
scarcely strong enough to carry. On their way to the river 
below Baghdad, where the boat was waiting for them, two of 
them stopped to drink at a well, while the other went on with 
the asses. Said one of the twain to the other : " Let us kill 
our comrade, that we may have the greater treasure." He at 
once agreed, and they had no sooner overtaken the third rob- * 
ber, than the first, with one stroke of his sabre, made his head 
fly from his body. The two then proceeded together for a 
short distance, when the murderer said : ' I must have more 
than half of the treasure, because I killed our comrade.' 'If 
you begin by claiming more than half, you will ia the end 
claim the whole,' said the other robber, who refused to agree. 
They presently set upon each other- with their swords, and 
after fighting for some time, both of them received so many 
wounds that they fell dead in the road. 

" The asses, finding that no one was driving them any 
longer, took, from habit, the road to the wood-cutter's house, 
where they arrived safely, with the treasure upon their backs 
Great was the amazement of their master, who, at Zubeydeh's 
command, carried the heavy sacks into the house. But when 
he had opened one of them, and the splendor of the jewels fill- 
ed the whole room, Zubeydeh exclaimed : ' G-od is great ! 
Now, indeed, I see that my conduct is acceptable to Him, and 
that His hand hurries my design more swiftly to its comple- 
tion.' But, as she knew not what had happened to the rob- 
bers, and supposed that the owner of the treasure would have 
his loss proclaimed in the bazaars, she determined to keep the 
sacks closed for the space of a moon, after which, according to 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 249 

the law, they would become her property, if they had not been 
claimed in the mean time. Of course, no proclamation of the 
loss was made, and at the end of the moon, she considered that 
she had a just right to the treasure, which, upon computation, 
proved to be even greater than that of the Caliph Haroun Al- 
Raschid. 

" She commanded the wood-cutter to send her at once the 
most renowned architect of Baghdad, whom she directed to 
build, exactly opposite to the Caliph's Palace, another palace 
which should surpass in splendor any thing that had ever been 
beheld. For the purchase of the materials and the hire of the 
workmen, she gave him a hundred thousand pieces of gold. 
' If men ask,' said she, ' for whom you are building the palace, 
tell them it is for the son of a foreign king.' The architect 
employed all the workmen in Baghdad, and followed her in- 
structions so well, that in two months the palace was finished. 
The like of it had never been seen, and the Galiph's palace 
faded before its magnificence as the face of the moon fades 
when the sun has risen above the horizon. The walls were of 
marble, white as snow; the gates of ivory, inlaid with pearl ; 
the domes were gilded, so that when the sun shone, the eye 
could not look upon them ; and from a great fountain of silver, 
in the court-yard, a jet of rose-colored water, which diffused 
an agreeable odor, leaped into air. Of this palace it might 
be said, in the words of the poet : ' Truly it resembles Para- 
dise ; or is it the lost House of Irem, built from the treasures 
of King Sheddad ? May kindness dwell upon the lips of the 
lord of this palace, and charity find refuge in his heart, that 
he be adjudged worthy to enjoy such splendor ! ' 

"Daring the building of the palace, Zubeydeh employed 
11* 



250 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the best masters in teaching the wood-cutter all the accomplish- 
ments which his present condition required that he should pos- 
sess. In a short time he was a very pattern of elegance in his 
manner ; his words were choice and spoken with dignity and 
propriety, and his demeanor was that of one born to command 
rather than to obey. When she had succeeded to the full ex- 
tent of her wishes, she commenced teaching him to play chess, 
and spent several hours a day in this manner, until he finally 
played with a skill equal to her own. By this time, the palace 
was completed, and after having purchased horses and slaves, 
and every thing necessary to the maintenance of a princely 
household, Zubeydeh and the wood-cutter took possession of it 
during the night, in order that they might not be observed by 
the Caliph. Zubeydeh bade the wood-cutter remember the 
promise he had made her. She still retained her own apart- 
ments, with a number of female slaves to attend her, and she 
now presented to him, as a harem becoming a prince, twenty 
Circassian girls, each one fairer than the morning-star. 

" The next morning she called the wood-cutter, and ad- 
dressed him thus : ' You see, my lord ! what I have done for 
you. You remember in what misery I found you, and how, 
by your following my advice, every thing was changed. I in- 
tend to exalt you still higher, and in order that my plans may 
not be frustrated, I now ask you to promise that you will obey 
me in all things, for a month from this time.' Zubeydeh made 
this demand, for she knew how quickly a change of fortune 
may change a man's character, and how he will soon come to 
look upon that as a right which Allah granted him as a boon. 
But the wood-cutter threw himself at her feet, and said : ' 
Queen ! it is for you to command, and it is for me to obey. 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 251 

You have taught me understanding and wisdom ; you have 
given me the wealth of kings. May Allah forget me, if I for- 
get to give you, in return, gratitude and obedience.' ' Go, 
then,' continued Zubeydeh, ' mount this horse, and attended 
by twenty slaves on horseback, visit the coffee-house in the 
great bazaar. Take with thee a purse of three thousand pieces 
of gold, and as thou goest on thy way, scatter a handful occa 
sionally among the beggars. Take thy seat in the coffee-house, 
where thou wilt see the Vizier's son, who is a skilful player 
of chess. He will challenge the multitude to play with him, 
and when no one accepts, do thou engage him for a thousand 
pieces of gold. Thou wilt win ; but pay him the thousand 
pieces as if thou hadst lost, give two hundred pieces to the 
master of the coffee-house, divide two hundred pieces among 
the attendants, and scatter the remainder among the beggars.' 
" The wood-cutter performed all that Zubeydeh commanded. 
He accepted the challenge of the Vizier's son, won the game, 
yet paid him a thousand pieces of gold as if he had lost, and 
then rode back to the palace, followed by the acclamations of 
the multitude, who were loud in their praises of his beauty, 
the elegance of his speech, his unbounded munificence, and the 
splendor of his attendance. Every day he visited the coffee- 
house, gave two hundred pieces of gold, to the master, two 
hundred to the servants, and distributed six hundred among 
the beggars. But the Vizier's son, overcome with chagrin at 
his defeat, remained at home, where, in a few days, he sick- 
ened and died. These things coming to the Vizier's ear, he 
felt a great desire to see the foreign prince, whose wealth and 
generosity were the talk of all Baghdad ; and as he believed 
himself to be the greatest chess-player in the world, he deter- 



252 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

mined to challenge him to a game. He thereupon visited the 
coffee-house, where he had not remained long when the wood- 
cutter made his appearance, in even greater splendor than be- 
fore. This was in accordance with the instructions of Zubey- 
deh, who was informed of all that had taken place. He at 
once accepted the Vizier's challenge to play, for a stake of two 
thousand pieces of gold. After a hard-fought battle, the 
Vizier was fairly beaten, but the wood-cutter paid him the 
two thousand pieces of gold, as if he had lost the game, gave 
away another thousand as usual, and retired to his palace. 

"The Vizier took his defeat so much to heart, that his cha- 
grin, combined with grief for the loss of his son, carried him 
off in a few days. This circumstance brought the whole his- 
tory to the ears of Haroun Al-Raschid himself, who was im- 
mediately seized with a strong desire to play chess with the 
foreign prince, not doubting but that, as he had always beaten 
his Vizier, he would be more than a match for the new antago- 
nist. Accordingly he sent an officer to the palace of the wood- 
cutter, with a message that the Commander of the Faithful de- 
sired to offer his hospitality to the son of the foreign king. 
By Zubeydeh's advice, the invitation was accepted, and the 
officer speedily returned to Haroun Al-Rasehid, to whom he 
gave such a description of the magnificence of the new palace, 
that the Caliph's mouth began to water, and he exclaimed : 
' By Allah ! I must look to this.' No man, who has not the 
ring of Solomon on his finger, shall surpass me in my own cap- 
ital ! " In a short time the wood-cutter arrived, attired in 
such splendor that the day seemed brighter for his appearance, 
and attended by forty black slaves, in dresses of crimson silk, 
with turbans of white and gold, and golden swords by their 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 253 

sides. They formed a double row from the court-yard to the 
throne-hall where the Caliph sat, and up the avenue thus form- 
ed the wood-cutter advanced, preceded by two slaves in dresses 
of cloth-of silver, who placed at the Caliph's feet two crystal 
goblets filled with rubies and emeralds of immense size. The 
Caliph, delighted with this superb present, rose, embraced the 
supposed prince, and seated him by his side. From the great 
wealth displayed by the wood-cutter, and the porfect grace 
and propriety of his manners, the Caliph suspected that he 
was no less a personage than the son of the King of Cathay. 

" After a handsome repast had been served, the Caliph 
proposed a game of chess, stating that he had heard much of 
the prince's skill in playing. ' After I shall have played with 
you, Commander of the Faithful!' said the wood-cutter, 
' you will hear no more of my skill.' The Caliph was charm- 
ed with the modesty of this speech, and the compliment to 
himself, and they immediately began to play. The wood-cut- 
ter, although he might easily have beaten the Caliph, suffered 
the latter to win the first game, which put him into the best 
humor possible. But when the second game had been played, 
and the wood-cutter was the victor, he perceived that the Ca- 
liph's face became dark, and his good-humor was gone. ' You 
are too generous to your servant, Caliph ! ' said he ; ' had 
you not given me this success as an encouragement, I should 
have lost a second time.' At these words Haroun smiled, and 
they played a third game, which the wood-cutter purposely al- 
lowed him to win. Such was the counsel given to him by Zu- 
beydeh, who said : ' If thou permittest him to win the first 
game, he will be so well pleased, that thou mayest venture to 
defeat him on the second game. Then, when he has won the 



254 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

third game, thy having been once victorious will magnify his 
opinion of his own skill ; for where we never suffer defeat, we 
at last regard our conquests with indifference.' 

" The result was precisely as Zubeydeh had predicted. 
The Caliph was charmed with the foreign prince, and in a few 
days made him his Vizier. The wood-cutter filled his exalted 
station with dignity and judgment, and became at once a great 
favorite with the people of Baghdad. The month of obedience 
which he promised to Zubeydeh was now drawing to a close, 
when she said to him : ' Cease to visit the Caliph, and do not 
leave thy palace for two or three days. When the Caliph 
sends for thee, return for answer that thou art ill.' She fore- 
saw that the Caliph would then come to see his Vizier, and 
gave the wood-cutter complete instructions, concerning what he 
should say and do. 

" Haroun Al-Kaschid no sooner heard of the illness of his 
Vizier, than he went personally to his palace, to see him. He 
was amazed at the size and splendor of the edifice, f Truly,' 
said he, striking his hands together, 'this man hath found 
the ring of Solomon, which compels the assistance of the ge- 
nii. In all my life I have never seen such a palace as this.' 
He found the Vizier reclining on a couch of cloth-of-gold, in a 
chamber, the walls whereof were of mother-of-pearl, and the 
floor of ivory. There was a fountain of perfumed water in the 
centre, and beside it stood a jasmine-tree, growing in a vase 
of crystal. ' How is this ? ' said the Caliph, seating himself 
on one end of the couch ; ' a man whom the genii serve, should 
have the secrets of health in his hands.' ' It is no fever,' said 
the Vizier ; ' but the other day as I was washing myself in the 
fountain, before the evening prayer, I stooped too hear the jas- 



THE SULTANA AND THE WOOD-CUTTER. 256 

mine tree, and one of its thorns scratched my left arm.' 
' What ! ' cried the Caliph, in amazement ; ' the scratch of a 
blunt jasmine-thorn has made you ill ! ' ' You wonder at it, 
no doubt, Commander of the Faithful!' said the Vizier; 
' because, only a few months ago, you saw that I was insensi- 
ble to the fangs of a serpent, which had fastened upon my 
heel.' 'There is no G-od but Grod!' exclaimed Haroun Al- 
Raschid, as by these words he recognized the poor wood-cut- 
ter, who had passed under the window of his palace — ' hast 
thou indeed found the ring of Solomon ? — and where is the wo- 
man whom Mesrour, at my command, brought to thee ? ' 

" ' She is here !' said Zubeydeh, entering the door. She 
turned towards the Caliph, and slightly lifting her veil, show- 
ed him her face, more beautiful than ever. Haroun, with a 
cry of joy, was on the point of clasping her in his arms, when 
he stopped suddenly, and said : ' But thou art now the wife of 
that man.' ' Not so, great Caliph ! ' exclaimed the Yizier 
who rose to his feet, now that there was no longer any need 
to affect illness ; ' from the day that she entered my house, I 
have never seen her face. By the beard of the Prophet, she 
is not less pure than she is wise. It is she who has made me 
all that I am. Obedience to her was the seed from which the 
tree of my fortune has grown.' Zubeydeh then knelt at the 
Caliph's feet, and said : ' Commander of the Faithful, re- 
store me to the light of your favor. I swear to you that I am 
not less your wife than when the cloud of your anger over- 
shadowed me. This honorable man has never ceased to re- 
spect me. My thoughtless words led you to send me forth to 
take the place of the serpent, but I have now shown you that 
a wife may also be to her husband as the staff, whereon he 



256 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

leans for support ; as the camel, which bringeth him riches , 
as the tent, which shelters and protects him ; as the bath, 
which maketh him comely, and as the lamp, whereby his steps 
are enlightened.' 

" Haroun Al-Raschid had long since bitterly repented of 
his rashness and cruelty. He now saw in what had happened, 
the hand of Allah, who had turned that which he had intended 
as a punishment, into a triumph. He restored Zubeydeh at 
once to his favor, and to the wood-cutter, whom he still retain- 
ed as Vizier, he gave his eldest daughter in marriage. All the 
citizens of Baghdad took part in the festivities, which lasted 
two weeks, and the Caliph, to commemorate his gratitude, 
built a superb mosque, which is called the Mosque of the Res- 
toration to this very day. The Vizier nobly requited all the 
pains which the Sultana Zubeydeh had taken with his educa- 
tion, and showed so much wisdom and justice in his adminis- 
tration of the laws, that the Caliph never had occasion to be 
dissatisfied with him. Thus they all lived together in the ut- 
most happiness and concord, until they were each, in turn, vis- 
ited by the Terminator of Delights and the Separator of Com- 
panions." 

So ended Aehmet's story ; but without the moonlight, the 
tall Ethiopian palms and the soothing pipe, as accessories, I 
fear that this reproduction of it retains little of the charm 
which I found in the original. It was followed by other and 
wilder tales, stamped in every part with the unmistakable sig- 
net of the Orient. They were all characterized by the belief 
in an inevitable Destiny, which seems to be the informing soul 
of all Oriental literature. This belief affords every liberty to 
the poet and romancer, and the Arabic authors have not scru- 



ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 257 

pled to make liberal use of it. There is no hazard in sur- 
rounding your hero with all sorts of real and imaginary dan- 
gers, or in heaping up obstacles in the path of his designs, 
when you know that his destiny obliges him to overcome them. 
He becomes, for the time, the impersonation of Fate, and cir- 
cumstances yield before him. You see, plainly, that he was 
chosen, in the beginning, to do the very thing which he accom- 
plishes, in the end. If a miracle is needed for his success, it 
is not withheld. Difficulties crowd upon him to the last, only 
that the final triumph may be more complete and striking. 
Yet with all these violations of probability, the Oriental tales 
exhibit a great fertility of invention and sparkle with touches 
of genuine human nature. The deep and absorbing interest 
with which the unlettered Arabs listen to their recital — the 
hold which they have upon the popular heart of the East — at- 
tests their value, as illustrations of Eastern life. 

From Poetry we frequently passed to Keligion, and Ach- 
met was astonished to find me familiar not only with Mo- 
hammed, but with Ali and Abdullah and Abu-talib, and with 
many incidents of the Prophet's life, which were new to him. 
The Persian chronicles were fresh in my memory, and all the 
wonders related of Mohammed by that solemn old biographer, 
Mohammed Bekr, . came up again as vividly as when I first 
read them. We compared notes, he repeated passages of the 
Koran, and so the Giaour and the True Believer discussed the 
nature of their faith, but always ended by passing beyond Pro- 
phet and Apostle, to the one great and good God, who is 
equally merciful to all men. I could sincerely adopt the first 
article of his faith: "La illah iV Allah!" " There is no 
God but God," while he was equally ready to accept the first 
commandment of mine. 



258 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PROM SHENDY TO KHARTOUM. 

Arrival at Shendy — Appearance of the Town— Shendy in Former Days — "We Touch at 
El Metemma — The Nile beyond Shendy— Flesh Diet vs. Vegetables — We Escape 
Shipwreck — A Walk on Shore— The Rapids of Derreira— Djebel Gerri— The 
Twelfth Cataract — Night in the Mountain Gorge — Crocodiles — A Drink of Mareesa 
— My Birth-Day — Fair Wind — Approach to Khartoum — The Junction of the Two 
Niles — Appearance of the City — We Drop Anchor. 

The morning after visiting the ruins of Meroe I reached the 
old Ethiopian town of Shendy. It lies about half a mile from 
the river, but the massive fort and palace of the Governor are 
built on the water's edge. Several spreading sycamore trees 
gave a grace to the shore, which would otherwise have been 
dull and tame. Naked Ethiopians were fishing or washing 
their clothes in the water, and some of .them, as they held their 
long, scarlet-edged mantles above their heads, to dry in the 
wind and sun, showed fine, muscular figures. The women had 
hideous faces, but symmetrical and well developed forms. A 
group of Egyptian soldiers watched us from the bank before 
the palace, and several personages on horseback, one of whom 
appeared to be the Governor himself, were hailing the ferry 



259 



boat, which, was just about putting off with a heavy load of na- 
tives. 

We ran the boat to the shore, at a landing-place just above 
the palace. The banks of the river were covered with fields 
of cucumbers and beans, the latter brilliant with white and 
purple blossoms and filled with the murmuring sound of bees. 
Achmet, the rais and I walked up to the capital — the famous 
Shendy, once the great mart of trade for the regions between 
the Red Sea and Dar-Fur. On the way we met numbers of 
women with water-jars. They wore no veils, but certainly 
needed them, for their faces were of a broad, semi-negro char- 
acter, and repulsively plain. The town is built in a straggling 
manner, along a low, sandy ridge, and is upwards of a mile in 
length, though it probably does not contain more than ton 
thousand inhabitants. The houses are mud, of course, but 
rough and filthy, and many of them are the same circular to- 
Jcuh of mats and palm-sticks as I had already noticed in the 
smaller villages. The only decent dwelling which I saw had 
.been just erected by a Congolese merchant. There was a 
mosque, with a low mud minaret, but neither in this nor in 
any other respect did the place compare with El Mekheyref. 
The bazaar resembled a stable, having a passage through the 
centre, shaded with mats, and stalls on either side, some of 
which contained donkeys and others merchants. The goods 
displayed were principally blue and white cotton stuffs of coarse 
quality, beads, trinkets and the like. It was market-day, but 
the people had not yet assembled. A few screens of matting, 
erected on sticks, were the only preparations which had been 
made. The whole appearance of the place was that of poverty 
and desertion. Beyond the clusters of huts, and a mud wall, 



260 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

which ran along the eastern side of the town, the Desert ex- 
tended to the horizon — a hot, white plain, dotted with clumps 
of thorns. On our return to the boat, the rai's pointed out the 
spot where, in 1822, Ismail Pasha and his soldiers were burn- 
ed to death by Mek Nemr (King Leopard), the last monarch 
of Shendy. The bloody revenge taken by Mohammed Bey 
Defterdar (son-in-law of Mohammed Ali), for that act, sealed 
the fate of the kingdom. The seat of the Egyptian govern- 
ment in Soudan was fixed at Khartoum, which in a few years 
became also the centre of trade, and now flourishes at the ex- 
pense of Shendy and El Metemma. 

Burckhardt, who visited Shendy during the reign of King 
Leopard, devotes much space to a description of the trade of 
the town at that time. It was then in the height of its pros- 
perity, and the resort of merchants from Arabia, Abyssinia, 
Egypt, and even Syria and Asia Minor. It was also one of 
the chief slave-marts o" Central Africa, in which respect it has 
since been superseded by Obeid, in Kordofan. The only com- 
merce which has been left to Shendy is that with Djidda and 
the other Arabian ports, by way of Sowakin, on the Red Sea — 
a caravan journey of fourteen days, through the country of 
Takka, infested by the wild tribes of the Hallengas and Haden- 
doas. Mek Nemr, according to Burckhardt, was of the 
Djaaleyn tribe, who are descendants of the Beni Koreish, of 
Yemen, and still retain the pure Arabian features. I was 
afterwards, during my stay in Khartoum, enabled to verify 
the declaration of the same traveller, that all the tribes of 
Ethiopia between the Nile and the Red Sea are of unmixed 
Arab stock. 

The palace of the Governor, which was a building of con- 



EL METEMMA. 261 

siderable extent, had heavy circular bastions, which were de- 
fended by cannon. Its position, on the bank of the Nile, was 
much more agreeable than that of the city, and the garrison 
had settled around it, forming a small village on its eastern 
side. The white walls and latticed windows of the palace 
reminded me of Cairo, and I anticipated a pleasant residence 
within its walls, on my return to Shendy. As I wished to 
reach Khartoum as soon as possible I did not call upon the 
Governor, but sent him the letter of recommendation from 
Yagheshir Bey. From Shendy, one sees the group of palms 
which serves as a landmark to El Metemma, the capital of a 
former Ethiopian Kingdom, further up the Nile, on its oppo- 
site bank. This is the starting point for caravans to Merawe 
and Dongola through the Beyooda Desert. We passed its 
port about noon, and stopped a few minutes to let the rais pay 
his compliments to the owner of our vessel, who was on shore. 
He was a little old man, with a long staff, and dressed like the 
meanest Arab, although he was shekh of half a dozen villages, 
and had a servant leading a fine Dongolese horse behind him. 
The boat of Khalim Bey, agent of the Governor of Berber and 
Shendy, was at the landing place, and we saw the Bey, a tall, 
handsome Turk in a rich blue and crimson dress, who sent a 
servant to ask my name and character. 

The scenery of the Nile, southward from Shendy, is again 
changed. The tropical rains which fall occasionally at Abou- 
Hammed and scantily at Berber, are here periodical, and there 
is no longer the same striking contrast between desert and 
garden land. The plains extending inward from the river are 
covered with a growth of bushes and coarse grass, which also 
appears in patches on the sides of the mountains. The inhabi" 



262 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

tants cultivate but a narrow strip of beans and dourra along, 
the river, but own immense flocks of sheep and goats, which 
afford their principal sustenance. I noticed many fields of the 
grain called doolckn, of which they plant a larger quantity than 
of dourra. Mutton, however, is the Ethiopian's greatest deli- 
cacy. Notwithstanding this is one of the warmest climates in 
the world, the people eat meat whenever they can get it, and 
greatly prefer it to vegetable food. The sailors and camel- 
drivers, whose principal food is dourra, are, notwithstanding a 
certain quality of endurance, as weak as children, when com- 
pared with an able-bodied European, and they universally 
attribute this weakness to their diet. This is a fact for the 
lank vegetarians to explain. My experience coincided with 
that of the Ethiopians, and I ascribed no small share of my 
personal health and strength, which the violent alternations of 
heat and cold during the journey had not shaken in the least, 
to the fact of my having fared sumptuously every day. 

After leaving Shendy, the Nile makes a bend to the west, and 
we went along slowly all the afternoon, with & side-wind. The 
shores were not so highly cultivated as *hose we had passed 
and low hills of yellow sand began to show themselves on 
either hand. The villages were groups of mud toTculs, with 
high, conical roofs, and the negro type of face appeared much 
more frequently among the inhabitants — the result of amalga- 
mation with slaves. We saw numbers of young crocodiles 
which my sailors delighted to frighten by shouting and throw- 
ing sticks at them, as they sunned themselves on the sand. 
Wild geese and ducks were abundant, and the quiet little coves 
along the shore were filled with their young brood. During 
the day a large hawk or vulture dashed down to within a yard 



ESCAPE FROM SHIPWRECK. 263 

of tho deck in the attempt to snatch a piece of my black ram, 
which Beshir had just killed. 

The next morning we had a narrow escape from shipwreck. 
The wind blew strong from the north, as we reached a twist in 
the river, where om* course for several miles lay to the north- 
west, obliging the men to take in sail and tow the vessel. They 
had reached the turning-point and the sail was blowing loose, 
while two sailors lay out on the long, limber yard, trying to 
reef, when a violent gust pulled the rope out of the hands of 
the man on shore, and we were carried into the stream. The 
steersman put the helm hard up, and made for the point of an 
island which lay opposite, but the current was so strong that we 
could not reach it. It blew a gale, and the Nile was rough with 
waves. Between the island and the southern shore lay a clus- 
ter of sharp, black rocks, and for a few minutes we appeared to 
be driving directly upon them. The rais and sailors, with 
many cries of " Prophet ! Apostle ! " gave themselves up 
to their fate ; but the strength of the current saved us. Our 
bow just grazed the edge of the last rock, and we were blown 
across to the opposite shore, where we struck hard upon the 
sand and were obliged to remain two hours, until the wind 
abated. I was vexed and impatient at first, but remembering 
the effect of a pipe upon a similar occasion, I took one, and 
soon became calm enough to exclaim : " it is the will of Allah ! " 

While the boat was making such slow headway, I went 
ashore and walked an hour or two among the fields of beans 
and dourra. The plains for several miles inland were covered 
with dry grass and thorn-trees, and only needed irrigation to 
bloom as a garden. The sun was warm, the bean-fields alive 
with bees, and the wind took a rich summer fragrance from the 



264 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

white and purple blossoms. Near one of the huts, I accosted 
a woman who was weeding among the dourra. She told me 
that her husband had deserted her and taken another wife, 
leaving her the charge of their two children. He had also 
taken her three cows and given them to his new wife, so that 
her only means of support was to gather the dry grass and sell 
it in the villages. I gave her a few piastres, which she receiv* 
ed gratefully. In the afternoon we passed the main bend of 
the river, and were able to make use of the wind, which by this 
time was light. The sailor who had been left ashore during 
the gale overtook us, by walking a distance of eight or ten 
miles and swimming one of the smaller arms of the river. The 
western bank of the river now became broken and billy, occa- 
sionally overhung by bluffs of gravelly soil, of a dark red color. 
On the top of one of the hills there was a wall, which the rais 
pointed out to me as Jcadeem (ancient), but it appeared too 
dilapidated to repay the trouble of a visit. 

On the following day, the scenery became remarkably wild 
and picturesque. After passing the village of Derreira, on the 
right bank, the Nile was studded with islands of various sizes, 
rising like hillocks from the water, and all covered with the 
most luxuriant vegetation. The mimosa, the acacia, the palm, 
the sycamore and the nebbuk flourished together in rank 
growth, with a profusion of smaller shrubs, and all were mat- 
ted together with wild green creepers, which dropped their 
long streamers of pink and purple blossoms into the water. 
Reefs of black rock, over which the waves foamed impetuous- 
ly, made the navigation intricate and dangerous. The banks 
of the river were high and steep, and covered with bushes and 
rank grass, above which the rustling blades of the dourra glit- 



THE TWELFTH CATARACT. 265 

fcered in the sun. The country was thickly populated, and the 
inhabitants were mostly of the Shygheean tribe — from Dar 
Shygheea, the region between Dongola and Berber. The sakias 
were tended bj Dinka slaves, as black as ebony, and with 
coarse, brutish faces, At one point on the eastern shore, oppo- 
site the island of Bendi, the natives had collected all their live 
stock, but for what purpose I could not learn. The shore was 
covered with hundreds of camels, donkeys, sheep, cows and 
goats, carefully kept in separate herds. 

After threading ten miles of those island bowers, we ap- 
proached Djebel Grerri, which we had seen all day, ahead of us. 
The Nile, instead of turning westward around the flank of the 
mountain, as I had anticipated from the features of the land- 
scape, made a sudden bend to the south, between a thick clus- 
ter of islands, and entered the hills. At this point there was 
a rapid, extending half-way across the river. The natives call 
it a shellal (cataract), although it deserves the name no more 
than the cataracts of Assouan and Wadi-Halfa. Adopting the 
term, however, which has been sanctioned by long usage, this 
is the Twelfth Cataract of the Nile, and the last one which the 
traveller meets before reaching the mountains of Abyssinia. 
The stream is very narrow, compressed between high hills of 
naked red sandstone rock. At sunset we were completely shut 
in the savage solitude, and there we seemed likely to remain, 
for the wind came from all quarters by turns, and jammed the 
vessel against the rocks, more than once. 

The narrow terraces of soil on the sides of the mountains 

were covered with dense beds of long, dry grass, and as we lay 

moored to the rocks, I climbed up to one of these, in spite of 

the rai's's warnings that I should fall in with lions and ser 

12 



266 jotjRxey to central Africa. 

pents. I lay down in the warm grass, and watched the shad- 
ows deepen in the black gorge, as the twilight died away. The 
jzihzak or crocodile-bird twittered along the shore, and, after 
it became quite dark, the stillness was occasionally broken by 
the snort of a hippopotamus, as he thrust his huge head above 
water, or by the yell of a hyena prowling among the hills. Talk 
of the pleasure of reading a traveller's adventures in strange 
lands ! There is no pleasure equal to that of living them : 
neither the anticipation nor the memory of such a scene as I 
witnessed that evening, can approach the fascination of the re- 
ality. I was awakened after midnight by the motion of the 
vessel, and looking out of my shelter as I lay, could see that 
we were slowly gliding through the foldings of the stony moun- 
tains. The moon rode high and bright, over the top of a peak 
in front, and the sound of my prow, as it occasionally grated 
against the rocks, alone disturbed the stillness of the wild pass. 
Once the wind fell, and the men were obliged to make fast to 
a rock, but before morning we had emerged from the mountains 
and were moored to the bank, to await daylight for the passage 
of the last rapid. 

In the mouth of the pass lies an island, which rises into a 
remarkable conical peak, about seven hundred feet in height. 
It is called the Rowyan (thirst assuaged), while a lofty summit 
of the range of Gerri bears the name of Djebel Attshan (the 
Mountain of Thirst). The latter stands on a basis of arid 
sand, whence its name, but the Rowyan is encircled by the 
arms of the Nile. In the "Wady Beit-Naga, some three or four 
hours' journey eastward from the river, are the ruined temples 
of Naga and Mesowurat, described by Hoskins. The date of 
their erection has been ascertained by Lepsius to be coeval 



DRINKING MAREESA. 267 

with, that of Meroe. We here saw many crocodiles, basking on 
the warm sand-banks. One group of five were enormous mon- 
sters, three of them being at least fifteen, and the other two 
twenty feet in length. They lazily dragged their long bodies 
into the water as we approached, but returned after we had 
passed. The zikzaks were hopping familiarly about them, on 
the sand, and I have no doubt that they do service to the croco- 
diles in the manner related by the Arabs. 

The river was still studded with islands — some mere frag- 
ments of rock covered with bushes, and some large level tracts, 
flourishing with rich fields of cotton and dourra. About noon, 
we passed a village on the eastern bank, and I sent Ali and 
Beshir ashore to procure supplies, for my ram was finished. 
Mi found only one fowl, which the people did not wish to sell, 
but, Turk-like, he took it forcibly and gave them the usual 
price. Beshir found some mareesa, a fermented drink made 
of dourra, and for two piastres procured two jars of it, holding 
two gallons each, which were brought down to the boat by a 
pair of sturdy Dinka women, whose beauty was almost a match 
for Bakhita. The mareesa had an agreeable flavor and very 
little intoxicating property. I noticed, however, that after 
Beshir had drunk nearly a gallon, he sang and danced rather 
more than usual, and had much to say of a sweetheart of his, 
who lived in El-Metemma, and who bore the charming name 
of Gammero-Betahadjero. Bakhita, after drinking an equal 
portion, complained to me bitterly of my white sheep, which 
had nibbed off the ends of the woolly twists adorning her head, 
but I comforted her by the present of half a piastre, for the 
purpose of buying mutton-fat. 

As the wind fell, at sunset, we reached a long slope of 



268 JOURNEY TO CENTRA*, AFRICA. 

snowy sand, on the island of Aussee. Achmet went to the 
huts of the inhabitants, where he was kindly received and fur- 
nished with milk. I walked for an hour up and down the 
beautiful beach, breathing the mild, cool evening air, heavy 
with delicious odors. The glassy Nile beside me reflected the 
last orange-red hues of sunset, and the evening star, burning 
with a white, sparry lustre, made a long track of light across 
his breast. I remembered that it was my birth-day — the fourth 
time I had spent my natal anniversary in a foreign land. The 
first had been in Germany, the second in Italy, the third in 
Mexico, and now the last, in the wild heart of Africa. They 
were all pleasant, but this was the best of all. 

When I returned to the vessel, I found my carpet and 
cushions spread on the sand, and Ali waiting with my pipe. 
The evening entertainment commenced : I was listening to an 
Arabian tale, and watching the figures of the boatmen, grouped 
around a fire they had kindled in a field of dookhn, when the 
wind came up with a sudden gust and blew out the folds of my 
idle flag. Instantly the sand was kicked over the brands, the 
carpet taken up, all hands called on board, and we dashed away 
on the dark river with light hearts. I rose before sunrise the 
next morning and found the wind unchanged. We were sail- 
ing between low shores covered with grain-fields, and a sandy 
island lay in front. The rais no sooner saw me than he called 
my attention to the tops of some palm-trees that appeared on 
the horizon, probably six or eight miles distant. They grew 
in the gardens of Khartoum ! We reached the jjoint of the 
broad, level island that divides the waters of the two Niles, 
and could soon distinguish the single minaret and buildings of 
the city. A boat, coming down from the White Nile, passed 



ARRIVAL AT KHARTOUM. 269 

as on the right, and another, bound for Khartoum, led us up 
the Blue Nile. The proper division between the two rivers is 
the point of land upon which Khartoum is built, but the chan- 
nel separating it from the island opposite is very narrow, and 
the streams do not fully meet and mingle their waters till the 
island is passed. 

The city presented a picturesque — and to my eyes, accus- 
tomed to the mud huts of the Ethiopian villages — a really 
stately appearance, as we drew near. The line of buildings 
extended for more than a mile along the river, and many of 
the houses were embowered in gardens of palm, acacia, orange 
and tamarind trees. The Palace of the Pasha had a certain 
appearance of dignity, though its walls were only unburnt 
brick, and his hareem, a white, two-story building, looked cool 
and elegant amid the palms that shaded it. Egyptian soldiers, 
in their awkward, half-Frank costume, were lounging on the 
bank before the Palace, and slaves of inky blackness, resplen- 
dent in white and red livery, were departing on donkeys on 
their various errands. The slope of the bank was broken at 
short intervals by water-mills, and files of men with skins, and 
women with huge earthen jars on their heads, passed up and 
down between the water's edge and the openings of the narrow 
lanes leading between the gardens into the city. The boat of 
the Governor of Berber, rowed by twelve black slaves, put off 
from shore, and moved slowly down stream, against the north 
wind, as we drew up and moored the America below the gar- 
den of the Catholic Mission. It was the twelfth of January : 
I had made the journey from Assouan to Khartoum in twenty- 
six days, and from Cairo in fifty-seven. 



??0 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

LIFE IN KHARTOUM. 

The American 1 lag — A Rencontre — Search for a House — The Austrian Consular Agent 
— Description of his Residence — The Garden — The Menagerie — Barbaric Pomp and 
State — Picturesque Character of the Society of Khartoum — Foundation and O-rowra 
of the City — Its Appearance— The Population — Unhealthiness of the Climate — 
Assembly of Ethiopian Chieftains— Yisit of Two Shekbs — Dinner and Fireworks. 

At the time of my arrival in Khartoum, there were not more 
than a dozen vessels in port, and the only one which would pass 
for respectable in Egypt was the Pasha's dahabiyeh. I had 
but an open merchant-boat, yet my green tent and flag gave it 
quite a showy air, and I saw that it created some little sensa- 
tion among the spectators. The people looked at the flag with 
astonishment, for the stars and stripes had never before been 
seen in Khartoum. At the earnest prayer of the rais, who 
was afraid the boat would be forcibly impressed into the ser- 
vice of the Government, and was anxious to get back to his 
sick family in El Metemma, I left the flag flying until he was 
ready to leave. Old Bakhita, in her dumb, ignorant way, ex- 
pressed great surprise and grief when she learned that Achmet 
and I were going to desert the vessel. She had an indefinite 



SEARCH FOR A HOUSE. 2Tl 

idea that we had become part and parcel of it, and would re- 
main on board for the rest of our lives. 

I took Acbmet and started immediately in search of a 
house, as in those lands a traveller who wishes to be respect- 
able, must take a residence on arriving at a city, even if he 
only intends to stay two or three days. Over the mud walls 
on either side of the lane leading up from the water, I could 
look into wildernesses of orange, date, fig and pomegranate 
trees, oleanders in bloom and trailing vines. We entered a 
tolerable street, cleanly swept, and soon came to a coffee-house 
Two or three persons were standing at the door, one of whom 
— a fat, contented-looking Turk — eyed Achmet sharply. The 
two looked at each other a moment in mutual doubt and aston- 
ishment, and then fell into each other's arms. It was a Syrian 
merchant, whom Achmet had known in Cairo and Beyrout. 
" master ! " said he, his dark face radiant with delight, as 
he clasped the hand of the Syrian : " there never was such a 
lucky journey as this ! " 

The merchant, who had been two years in Khartoum, ac- 
companied us in our search. We went first to the residence 
of the shekh of the quarter, who was not at home. Two small 
boys, the sons of one of a detachment of Egyptian physicians, 
who had recently arrived, received me. They complained bit- 
terly of Soudan, and longed to get back again to Cairo. We 
then went to the Governor of the city, but he was absent in 
Kordofan. Finally, in wandering about the streets, we met a 
certain Ali Effendi, who took us to a house which would be 
vacant the next day. It was a large mud palace, containing an 
outer and inner divan, two sleeping rooms, a kitchen, store- 
rooms, apartments for servants, and an inclosed court-yard and 



272 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

stables, all of which were to be had at one hundred piastres a 
month — an exorbitant price, as I afterwards learned. Before 
engaging it, I decided to ask the advice of the Austrian Con- 
sular Agent, Dr. Reitz, for whom I had letters from the Eng- 
lish and Austrian Consuls in Cairo. He received me with true 
German cordiality, and would hear of nothing else but that I 
should immediately take possession of an unoccupied room in 
his house. Accordingly the same day of my arrival beheld me 
installed in luxurious quarters, with one of the most brave, 
generous and independent of men as my associate. 

As the Consul's residence was the type of a bouse of the 
best class in Khartoum, a description of it may give some idea 
of life in the place, under the most agreeable circumstances. 
The ground-plot was one hundred and thirty paces square, and 
surrounded by a high mud wall. Inside of this stood the dwell- 
ing, which was about half that length, and separated from it 
by a narrow garden and court-yard. Entering the court by 
the gate, a flight of steps conducted ' to the divan, or recep- 
tion-room, in the second story. From the open ante-chamber 
one might look to the south over the gray wastes of Sennaar, 
or, if the sun was near his setting, see a reach in the White 
Nile, flashing like the point of an Arab spear. The divan had 
a cushioned seat around three sides and matting on the floor, 
and was really a handsome room, although its walls were mud, 
covered with a thin coating of lime, and its roof palm-logs 
overlaid with coarse matting, on which rested a layer of mud 
a foot thick. In the second story were also the Consular Of- 
fice and a sleeping room, The basement contained the kitchen, 
store-rooms, and servants' rooms. The remainder of the house 
was only one story in height, and had a balcony looking on the 



THE MENAGERIE. 273 

garden, and completely embowered in flowering vines. The 
only rooms were the dining hall, with cushioned divans on each 
side and a drapery of the Austrian colors at the end, and my 
apartment, which overlooked a small garden-court, wherein two 
large ostriches paced up and down, and a company of wild 
geese and wild swine made continual discord. The court at 
the entrance communicated with the stables, which contained 
the Consul's horses — a white steed, of the pure Arabian blood 
of Nedjid, and the red stallion appropriated to my use, which 
was sent by the King of Par-Fur to Lattif Pasha, and present- 
ed by him to the Consul. A liejin, or trained dromedary, of 
unusual size, stood in the court, and a tame lioness was tied to 
a stake in the corner. She was a beautiful and powerful beast, 
and I never passed her without taking her head between my 
knees, or stroking her tawny hide until she leaned against me 
like a cat and licked my hand. 

Passing through a side-door into the garden, we came upon 
a whole menagerie of animals. Under the long arbors, cover- 
ed with luxuriant grape-vines, stood two surly hyenas, a wild 
ass from the mountains of the Atbara, and an Abyssinian mule. 
A tall marabout (a bird of the crane species, with a pouch-bill), 
stalked about the garden, occasionally bending a hinge in the 
middle of his long legs, and doubling them backwards, so that 
he used half of them for a seat. Adjoining the stable was a 
large sheep-yard, in which were gathered together gazelles, 
strange varieties of sheep and goats from the countries of the 
White Nile, a virgin-crane, and a large antilojpus leucoryx, 
from Kordofan, with curved horns four feet in length. My 
favorite, however, was the leopard, which was a most playful 
and affectionate creature, except at meal-time. He was not 
12* 



274 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

more than half grown, and ha"d all the wiles of an intelligent 
kitten, climbing his post and springing upon me, or creeping 
up slyly and seizing my ankle in his mouth. The garden, 
which was watered by a well and string of buckets turned by 
an ox, had a rich variety of fruit trees. The grape season was 
just over, though I had a few of the last bunches ; figs were 
ripening from day to day, oranges and lemons were in fruit 
and flower, bananas blooming for another crop, and the pome- 
granate and Mshteh, or custard-apple, hung heavy on the 
branches. There was also a plantation of date-trees and su- 
gar-cane, and a great number of ornamental shrubs. 

In all these picturesque features of my residence in Khar- 
toum, I fully realized that I had at last reached Central Afri- 
ca. In our mode of life, also, there was a rich flavor of that 
barbaric pomp and state which one involuntarily associates 
with the name of Soudan. We arose at dawn, and at sunrise 
were in the saddle. Sometimes I mounted the red stallion, of 
the wild breed of Dar-Fur, and sometimes one of the Consul's 
tall and fleet dromedaries. Six dark attendants, in white and 
scarlet dresses, followed us on dromedaries, and two grooms 
on foot ran before us, to clear a way through the streets. Af- 
ter passing through Khartoum, we frequently made long excur- 
sions up the banks of the two Niles, or out upon the boundless 
plain between them. In this way, I speedily became familiar 
with the city and its vicinity, and as, on our return, I always 
accompanied the Consul on all his visits to the various digni- 
taries, I had every opportunity of studying the peculiar life of 
the place, and gaining some idea of its governing principles. 
As the only city of Central Africa which has a regular com- 
munication with the Mediterranean (by which it occasionally 



SOCIETY IN KHARTOUM. 2?5 

receives a ray of light from the civilized world heyond), it has 
become a capital on a small scale, and its society is a curious 
compound of Christian, Turk and Barbarian. On the same 
day, I have had a whole sheep set before me, in the hoiise of 
an Ethiopian Princess, who wore a ring in her nose ; taken 
coffee and sherbet with the Pasha ; and drank tea, prepared in 
the true English style, in the parlor of a European. When 
to these remarkable contrasts is added the motley character of 
its native population, embracing representatives from almost 
every tribe between Dar-Fur and the Red Sea, between Egypt 
and the Negro kingdoms of the White Nile, it will readily be 
seen how rich a field of observation Khartoum offers to the 
traveller. Nevertheless, those who reside there, almost with- 
out exception, bestow upon the city and country all possible 
maledictions. Considered as a place of residence, other ques- 
tions come into play, and they are perhaps not far wrong. 

Khartoum is the most remarkable — I had almost said the 
only example of physical progress in Africa, in this century. 
Where, thirty years ago, there was not even a dwelling, unless 
it might be the miserable tolcul, or straw hut of the Ethiopian 
Fellah, now stands a city of some thirty or forty thousand in- 
habitants, daily increasing in size and importance, and gradual- 
ly drawing into its mart the commerce of the immense regions 
of Central Africa. Its foundation, I believe, is due to Ismail 
Pasha (son of Mohammed Ali), who, during his conquests of 
the kingdoms of Shendy and Sennaar, in the years 1821 and 
1822, recognized the importance, in a military and commercial 
sense, of establishing a post at the confluence of the two Niles. 
Mohammed Bey Defterdar, who succeeded him, seconded the 
plan, and ere long it was determined to make Khartoum, on 



1i'16 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

account of its central position, the capital of the Egyptian 
pashalik of Soudan. Standing at the mouth of the Blue Nile, 
which flows down from the gold and iron mountains of Abys- 
sinia, and of the White Nile, the only avenue to a dozen Negro 
kingdoms, rich in ivory and gum, and being nearly equidistant 
from the conquered provinces of Sennaar, Kordofan, Shendy 
and Berber, it speedily outgrew the old Ethiopian cities, and 
drew to itself the greater part of their wealth and commercial 
activity. Now it is the metropolis of all the eastern part of 
Soudan, and the people speak of it in much the same style as 
the Egyptians speak of their beloved Cairo. 

The town is larger, cleaner and better built than any of 
the cities of Upper Egypt, except perhaps Siout. It extends 
for about a mile along the bank of the Blue Nile, facing the 
north, and is three-quarters of a mile in its greatest breadth. 
The part next the river is mostly taken up with the gardens 
and dwellings of Beys and other government officers, and weal- 
thy merchants. The gardens of the Pasha, of Moussa Bey, 
Musakar Bey and the Catholic Mission are all large and beau- 
tiful, and towards evening, when the north wind rises, shower 
the fragrance of their orange and mimosa blossoms over the 
whole town. The dwellings, which stand in them, cover a 
large space of ground, but are, for the most part, only one 
story in height, as the heavy summer rains would speedily beat 
down mud walls of greater height. The Pasha's palace, which 
was built during the year previous to my visit, is of burnt 
brick, much of which was taken from the ancient Christian 
ruins of Abou-Harass, on the Blue Nile. It is a quadrangu- 
lar building, three hundred feet square, with a large open court 
in the centre. Its front formed one side of a square, which, 



THE CITY AND POPULATION. 277 

when complete, will be surrounded by other offices of govern- 
ment. For Soudan, it is a building of some pretension, and 
the Pasha took great pride in exhibiting it. He told me that 
the Arab shekhs who visited him would not believe that it was 
the work of man alone. Allah must have helped him to raise 
such a wonderful structure. It has an inclosed arched corri- 
dor in front, in the Italian style, and a square tower over the 
entrance. At the time of my visit Abdallah Effendi was 
building a very handsome two-story house of burnt brick, and 
the Catholic priests intended erecting another, as soon as they 
should have established themselves permanently. "Within a 
few months, large additions had been made to the bazaar, 
while the houses of the slaves, on the outskirts of the city, 
were constantly springing up like ant-hills. 

There is no plan whatever in the disposition of the build- 
ings. Each man surrounds his property with a mud wall, re- 
gardless of its location with respect to others, and in going 
from one point to another, one is obliged to make the most 
perplexing zigzags. I rarely ventured far on foot, as I soon 
became bewildered in the labyrinth of blank walls. When 
mounted on the Consul's tallest dromedary, I looked down on 
the roofs of the native houses, and could take my bearings 
without difficulty. All the mysteries of the lower life of 
Khartoum were revealed to me, from such a lofty post. On 
each side I looked into pent yards where the miserable Arab 
and Negro families lazily basked in the sun during the day, 01 
into the filthy nests where they crawled at night. The swarms 
of children which they bred in those dens sat naked in the 
dust, playing with vile yellow dogs, and sometimes a lean bur- 
den camel stood in the corner. The only furniture to be seen 



278 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

was a water-skin, a few pots and jars, a basket or two, and 
sometimes an angareh, or coarse wooden frame covered with, a 
netting of ropes, and serving as seat and bed. Nearly half the 
population of the place are slaves, brought from the mountains 
above Fazogl, or from the land of the Dinkas, on the White 
Nile. One's commiseration of these degraded races is almost 
overcome by his disgust with their appearance and habits, and 
I found even the waste plain that stretches towards Sennaar a 
relief after threading the lanes of the quarters where they live. 

Notwithstanding the nature of its population, Khartoum 
is kept commendably neat and clean. It will bo a lucky day 
for Home and Florence when their streets exhibit no more 
filth than those of this African city. The bazaars only, are 
swept every morning, but the wind performs this office for the 
remainder of the streets. The soog, or market, is held in a 
free space, opening upon the inland plain, where the country 
people bring their sheep, fowls, camels, dourra, vegetables and 
other common products. The slaughtering of animals takes 
place every morning on the banks of the Blue Nile, east of the 
city, which is thus entirely free from the effluvia arising there- 
from. Here the sheep, cows, goats and camels are killed, 
skinned and quartered in the open air, and it is no unusual 
thing to see thirty or forty butchers at work on as many dif- 
ferent animals, each surrounded by an attendant group of vul- 
tures, hawks, cranes, crows and other carnivorous birds. They 
are never molested by the people, and we sometimes rode 
through thousands of them, which had so gorged themselves 
that they scarcely took the trouble to move out of our way. 

The place labors under the disadvantage of being the most 
unhealthy part of one of the most unhealthy regions in the 



THE CLIMATE. 279 

wor.d. From the southern frontier of Nubia, where the tropi- 
cal rains begin to fall, to the table-land of Abyssinia on the 
south, and as far up the White Nile as has yet been explored, 
Scudan is devastated by fevers of the most malignant charac- 
ter. The summers are fatal to at least one-half of the Turks, 
Egyptians and Europeans who make their residence there, and 
the natives themselves, though the mortality is not so great 
among them, rarely pass through the year without an attack 
of fever. I arrived during the most healthy part of the year, 
and yet of all the persons I saw, three-fourths were complain- 
ing of some derangement of the system. The military hospi- 
tal, which I visited, was rilled with cases of fever, dysentery 
and small-pox. I was in such good bodily condition from my 
journey through the Desert that I could scarcely conceive the 
sensation of sickness, and the generous diet and invigorating 
exercise I enjoyed secured me from all fear of an attack. 
Travellers are not agreed as to the cause of this mortality in 
Soudan. Some attribute it to the presence of infusorise in the 
water ; yet we drank the pure, mountain-born flood of the Blue 
Nile, and filtered it beforehand. I am disposed to side with 
Russegger, who accounts for it entirely by the miasma arising 
from decayed vegetation, during the intense heats. The coun- 
try around Khartoum is a dead level ; the only mountain to 
be seen is the long ridge of Djebel Gerrari, twelve miles to the 
north. Behind the town, the White Nile curves to the east, 
and during the inundation his waters extend even to the sub- 
urbs, almost" insulating the place. The unusual sickness of the 
winter of 1852 might be accounted for by the inundation of 
the previous summer, which waa so much higher than ordinary 
that the people were obliged to erect dykes to keep the water 



280 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

out of the streets. The opposite bank of the river is consider- 
ed more healthy ; and in the town of Halfay, only ten miles 
distant, the average mortality is much less. 

I was fortunate in reaching Khartoum at a very interesting 
period. All the principal shekhs of the different tribes be- 
tween the Nile and the Bed Sea were then collected there, 
and as Dr. Reitz was on friendly terms with all of them, I 
had the opportunity of making their acquaintance, and could 
have readily procured a safe-conduct through their territories, 
if I had been disposed to make explorations in that direction. 

During the summer there had been trouble in the neigh- 
borhood of Sennaar, and a general movement against the 
Egyptian rule was feared. In October and November, how- 
ever, Moussa Bey made a campaign in the regions about and 
beyond the Atbara, and returned with the chief malcontents 
in chains. They were afterwards liberated, but had been re- 
tained in Khartoum until some disputed questions should be 
settled. On the night of my arrival, the consul received a 
visit of ceremony from the two principal ones : Hamed, the 
chief shekh of the Bisharees, and Owd-el-Kerim, son of the 
great shekh of the Shukorees, which inhabit the wide territory 
between the Atbara and the Blue Nile. They were accom- 
panied by several attendants, and by Mohammed Kheyr, the 
commander of the Shygheean cavalry employed in the late ex- 
pedition. The latter was a fierce-looking black in rich Turk- 
ish costume. 

Hamed was a man of middle size, black, but with straight 
features and a mild, serious expression of face. He was dress- 
ed in white, as well as his attendant whose bushy hair was 
twisted into countless strings and pierced with a new wooden 



VISIT OF ARAB SHEKHS. 281 

skewer. The Shukoree shekh arrived last. We were seated 
on the divan, and all rose when he entered. He was a tall, 
powerful man, with large, jet-black eyes and a bold, fierce face. 
He wore a white turban and flowing robes of the same color, 
with a fringe and stripe of crimson around the border. The 
Consul advanced to the edge of the carpet to meet him, when 
the shekh opened his arms and the two fell upon each other's 
necks. Coffee and pipes were then served, and water was 
brought for the washing preparatory to dinner. Hamed and 
the Shygheean captain washed only their hands, but the great 
Owd-el-Kerim washed his hands, face and feet, and occupied 
nearly a quarter of an hour at his devotions, bowing his head 
many times to the earth and repeating the name of Allah with 
deep emphasis. We passed through the garden to the dining- 
room, where the shekhs were greatly amazed at seeing a table 
set in European style. They all failed in managing the knives 
and forks, except Owd-el-Kerim, who watched the Consul and 
myself, and did his part with dignity. Achmet had made a 
vermicelli soup, which they eyed very suspiciously, and did not 
venture to take more than a few mouthfuls. They no doubt 
went away with the full belief that the Franks devour worms. 
They were at a loss how to attack the roast mutton, until I 
carved it for them, but did such execution with their fingers 
among the stews and salads that the dishes were soon emptied. 
After they had again partaken of coffee and pipes in the 
divan, the Consul ordered two or three rockets, which had been 
left from his Christmas celebration, to be sent up in order to 
satisfy the curiosity of his guests, who had heard much of 
those wonderful fires, which had amazed all Khartoum, three 
weeks before. The shekhs and attendants were grouped on 



282 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the balcony, when the first rocket shot hissing into the air, 
drew its fiery curve through the darkness, and burst into a 
rain of yellow stars. " Wallah ! " and " Mashallah ! " were 
echoed from mouth to mouth, and the desert chiefs could 
scarcely contain themselves, from astonishment and delight. 
The second rocket went up quite near to us, and sooner than 
was expected. Hamed, the Bisharee shekh, was so startled 
that he threw both his arms around the Consul and held fast 
for dear life, and even the great Owd-el-Kerim drew a long 
breath and ejaculated, "God is great!" They then took 
their leave, deeply impressed with the knowledge and wisdom 
of the Franks. 



VISIT TO THE CATHOLIC MISSION. 283 



CHAPTER XXII. 

VISITS IN KHABTOUM. 

Visit to. the Catholic Mission— Dr. Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar— Moussa Bey- 
Visit to Lattif Pasha— Reception — The Pasha's Palace — Lions — "We Dine with the 
Pasha — Ceremonies upon the Occasion — Music — The Guests — The Pranks in Khar- 
toum — Dr. Peney — Visit to the Sultana Nasra — An Ethiopian Dinner — Character 
of the Sultana. 

On the day of my arrival, Dr. Reitz proposed a visit to Dr. 
Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar of the Catholic Missions in 
Central Africa, who had returned to Khartoum about twenty 
days previous. The Vicar's name was already familiar to me, 
from the account of his voyage up the White Nile in 1850, 
which was published in the German journals during his visit 
to Europe, and it had been my design to propose joining his 
party, in ease he had carried out his plan of making a second 
voyage in the winter of 1852. He ascended as far as lat. 4° 
north, or about sixty miles beyond the point reached by D'Ar- 
naud and Werne, and therefore stands at the head of Nilotic 
explorers. 

Preceded by two attendants, we walked through the town 
to the Catholic Mission, a spacious one-story building in a large 
garden near the river. Entering a court, in the centre of 



£84 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

which grew a tall tamarind tree, we were received by an Italian 
monk, in flowing robes, who conducted us into a second court, 
inclosed by the residence of the Vicar. Here we met two other 
priests, a German and a Hungarian, dressed in flowing Orien- 
tal garments. They ushered us into a large room, carpeted 
with matting, and with a comfortable divan around the sides. 
The windows looked into a garden, which was filled with 
orange, fig and banana trees, and fragrant with jasmine and 
mimosa blossoms. We had scarcely seated ourselves, when 
the monks rose and remained standing, while Dr. Knoblocher 
entered. He was a small man, slightly and rather delicately 
built, and not more than thirty-five years of age. His com- 
plexion was fair, his eyes a grayish blue, and his beard, which 
he wore flowing upon his breast, a very decided auburn. His 
face was one of those which wins not only kindness but confi- 
dence from all the world. His dress consisted of a white tur 
ban, and a flowing robe of dark purple cloth. He is a man of 
thorough cultivation, conversant with several languages, and 
possesses an amount of scientific knowledge which will make 
his future explorations valuable to the world. During my 
stay in Khartoum I visited him frequently, and derived from 
him much information concerning the countries of Soudan and 
their inhabitants. 

On our return we called upon Moussa Bey, the commander 
of the expedition sent into the lands of the Shukorees and the 
Hallengas, the foregoing summer. He was then ill of a fever 
and confined to his bed, but we entered the room without cere- 
mony, and found with him the new Governor of Berber and 
Abd-el-Kader Bey, the Governor of Kordofan, besides several 
secretaries and attendants. Moussa Bey was a Turk, perhaps 



VISIT TO L. VfTIJF l'ASHA. 285 

fifty years of age, and had a strong, sturdy, energetic face. 
Several Arab shekhs, some of whom had been taken prisoners 
in the late expedition, were lounging about the court-yards. 

The day after my arrival, Dr. Reitz presented me to Lattif 
Pasha, the Governor of Soudan. The Egyptian officials in 
Khartoum generally consider themselves as exiles, and a sta- 
tion in Soudan carries with it a certain impression of disgrace. 
For the Pasha, however, it is an office of great importance and 
responsibility, and its duties are fully as arduous as those of 
the Viceroy of Egypt himself. The provinces under his rule 
constitute a territory of greater extent than France, and there 
are as many factions among the native tribes as parties among 
the French politicians. It is moreover, in many respects, an 
independent sovereignty. Its great distance from the seat of 
authority, and the absence of any regular means of communica- 
tion except the government post, gives the Pasha of Soudan 
opportunities of which he never fails to avail himself. Achmet 
Pasha at one time so strengthened himself here that he defied 
even Mohammed Ali, and it is still whispered that foul means 
were used to get rid of him. Since then, rotation in office is 
found to be good policy, and the Egyptian Government is care- 
ful to remove a Pasha before he has made himself dangerous. 
From the Turks and Europeans in Khartoum, I heard little 
good of Lattif Pasha. His character was said to be violent 
and arbitrary, and several most savage acts were attributed to 
him. One thing, however, was said in favor of him, and it 
was a great redeeming trait in those lands : he did not enrich 
himself by cheating the government. At the time of my visit 
it was understood that he had been recalled, and was to be su- 
perseded by Rustum Pasha. 



286 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA 

"We found the Pasha seated on his divan, with a secretary 
before him, reading a file of documents. The guards at the 
door presented arms as we entered, and the Pasha no sooner 
saw us than he rose, and remained standing till we came up. 
The Consul presented me, and we seated ourselves on the di- 
van, separated from him by a pair of cushions. Pipes were 
brought to us by black slaves, and after a few common-places, 
he turned again to his business. The Secretary was reading 
despatches to the different provinces of Soudan. As fast as 
each was approved and laid aside, a Memlook slave of fifteen, 
who appeared to fill the office of page, stamped them with the 
Pasha's seal, in lieu of signature. When the affairs were con- 
cluded, the Pasha turned to us and entered into conversation. 
He was a man of forty-five years of age, of medium height, but 
stoutly built, and with regular and handsome features. His 
complexion was a pale olive, his eyes large and dark, and he 
wore a black beard and moustaches, very neatly trimmed. His 
mouth was full, and when he smiled, showed a perfect set of 
strong white teeth, which gave a certain grimness to his ex- 
pression. His manner was refined, but had that feline smooth- 
ness which invariably covers sharp claws. If I had met him 
in London or Paris, in Frank costume, I should have set him 
down as the primo basso of the Italian Opera. He was plain- 
ly dressed in a suit of dark-blue cloth, and wore a small tar- 
boosh on his head. 

Our conversation first turned upon America, and finally 
upon steam navigation and maritime affairs in general. He 
took an interest in such subjects, as he was formerly Admiral 
in the navy of Mohammed Ali. An engraving of the Turkish 
frigate Sultan Mahmoud, which was built by the American 



the pasha's palace. 2iW 

Eckford, hung on the wall opposite me. Over the divan was 
a portrait of Sultan Abdul-Medjid, and on each side two Arabic 
sentences, emblazoned on a ground of blue and crimson. The 
apartment was spacious and lofty ; the ceiling was of smooth 
palm-logs, and the floor of cement, beaten hard and polished 
with the trowel. I expressed my surprise to the Pasha that 
he had erected such a stately building in the short space of 
nine months, and he thereupon proposed to show it to me more 
in detail. He conducted us to a reception-room, covered with 
fine carpets, and furnished with mirrors and luxurious divans ; 
then the dining-room, more plainly furnished, the bath with 
Moorish arches glimmering in steamy twilight, and his private 
armory, the walls of which were hung with a small but rich 
assortment of Turkish and European weapons. The doors of 
the apartments were made of a dark red wood, of very fine 
grain, closely resembling mahogany. It is found in the moun- 
tains of Fazogl, on the south-western border of Abyssinia. It 
is susceptible of a fine polish, and the Pasha showed me a large 
and handsome table made from it. 

The Pasha then led us into the court-yard, where the work- 
men were still busy, plastering the interior of the corridors 
surrounding it. A large leopard and a lion-whelp of six 
months old, were chained to two of the pillars. A younger 
whelp ran loose about the court, and gave great diversion to 
the Pasha, by lying in wait behind the pillars, whence he 
pounced out upon any young boy-slave, who might pass that 
way. The little fellow would take to his heels in great terror, 
and scamper across the court, followed by the whelp, who no 
sooner overtook him than he sprang with his fore-paws against 
the boy's back, threw him down, and then ran off, apparently 



288 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

very much delighted with the sport. He had the free range 
of the palace, but spent the most of his time in the kitchen, 
where he would leap upon a table, deliberately lie down, and 
watch the movements of the cooks with great interest. The 
Pasha told us that this whelp had on one occasion found his 
way to the harem, where his presence was first proclaimed by 
the screams of the terrified women. The leopard was a large 
and fierce animal, but the other lion was a rough, good-humor- 
ed fellow, turning over on his back to be played with, and 
roaring frequently, with a voice that resembled the low notes 
of a melancholy trombone. From this court we passed into the 
outer corridor fronting the square, when the jewelled shebooks 
were again brought, and the Pasha discoursed for some time on 
the necessity of controlling one's passions and preserving a quiet 
temperament under all circumstances. When we rose to depart, 
he invited us to return and dine with him next day. 

Towards sunset the horses were got ready ; Dr. Reitz don- 
ned his uniform, and I dressed myself in Frank costume, with 
the exception of the tarboosh, shawl and red slippers. We call- 
ed at the Catholic Mission on our way to the Palace, and while 
conversing with the monks in the garden, a message came from 
the Pasha requesting Aboona Suleyman — (Padre Solomon, as 
Dr. Knoblecher was called by the Copts and Mussulmen in 
Khartoum) — to accompany us. We therefore set out on foot 
with the Yicar, with the grooms leading the horses behind us. 
The Pasha received us at the entrance of his reception-room, 
and then retired to pray, before further conversation. The di- 
van at the further end of the room was divided in the centre 
by a pile of cushions, the space on the right hand being reserv- 
ed for the Pasha alone. The Consul, being the second inde« 



CEREMONIES BEFORE DINNER. 289 

pendent power, seated himself on the left hand, Dr. Knob- 
lecher modestly took the corner, and I drew up my legs beside 
him, on the side divan. After a short absence — during which, 
we also were supposed to have said our prayers — the Pasha 
returned, saluted us a second time, and seated himself. Four 
slaves appeared at the same moment, with four pipes, which 
they presented to us in the order of our rank, commencing with 
the Pasha. 

When the aroma of the delicate Djebeli tobacco had diffus- 
ed a certain amount of harmony among us, the conversation 
became more animated. The principal subject we discussed 
was the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon, the news of which had 
just arrived by dromedary post, in twenty-four days from 
Cairo. The Pasha said it was precisely the thing which he 
had long ago predicted would come to pass. Louis Napoleon, 
he said, would behead Thiers, Cavaignac, Lamoriciere and the 
others whom he had imprisoned, and make, if necessary, twenty 
coups d'etat, after which, France would begin to prosper. The 
French, he said, must be well beaten, or it is impossible 
to govern them. The conversation had hardly commenced, 
when a slave appeared, bearing a silver tray, upon which were 
four tiny glasses of mastic cordial, a,single glass of water, and 
saucers which contained bits of orange and pomegranate. The 
Pasha was always served first. He drank the cordial, took a 
sip of water, and then each of us in turn, drinking from the 
same glass. At intervals of about five minutes the same re- 
freshment appeared, and was served at least ten times before 
dinner was announced. 

Presently there came a band of musicians — five Egyptian 
boys whom the Pasha had brought with him from Cairo. "We 
13 



290 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

had also two additions to the company of guests : Rufaa Bey, 
an intelligent Egyptian, who was educated in France, and had 
been principal of a native college in Cairo, under Mohammed 
Ali, and Ali Bey Khasib, the late Governor of Berber, who 
had been deposed on account of alleged mal-practices. The 
latter was the son of a water- carrier in Cairo, but was adopted 
by the widow of Ismail Pasha, who gave him a superior educa- 
tion. Other accounts represented him to be the illegitimate 
son of either Ismail or Ibrahim Pasha, and this surmise was 
probably correct. He was a bold, handsome man of thirty, 
and was said to be the most intelligent of all the officials in 
Soudan. 

After some little prelude, the musicians commenced. The 
instruments were a zumarra, or reed flute, a dulcimer, the 
wires of which were struck with a wooden plectrum, held be- 
tween the first and middle fingers, and a tamborine, two of the 
boys officiating only as singers. The airs were Arabic and 
Persian, and had the character of improvisations, compared 
with the classic music of Europe. The rhythm was perfect, 
and the parts sustained by the different instruments arranged 
with considerable skill. The Egyptian officers were greatly 
moved by the melodies, which, in their wild, passionate, bar- 
baric cadences, had a singular charm for my ear. The songs 
were principally of love, but of a higher character than the 
common songs of the people. The Pasha translated a brace 
for us. One related to the loves of a boy and maiden, the for- 
mer of whom was humble, the latter the daughter of a Bey. 
They saw and loved each other, but the difference in their sta- 
tions prevented the fulfilment of their hopes. One day, as the 
girl was seated at her window, a funeral passed through the 



MUSIC AND DINNER. 291 

street below. She asked the name of the dead person, and 
they answered " Leyl," the name of her beloved, whom the 
violence of his passion had deprived of life. Her lamentations 
formed the theme of a separate song, in which the name of 
Leyl was repeated in one long, continued outcry of grief and 
love. The second song was of a widow who had many wooers, 
by whom she was so beset, that she finally appointed a day to 
give them her decision. The same day her son died, yet, be- 
cause she had given her word, she mastered her grief by a he- 
roic resolution, arrayed herself in her finest garments, received 
her suitors, and sang to her lute the song which would best 
entertain them. At the close of the festival she announced 
her loss in a song, and concluded by refusing all their offers. 
At last, dinner was announced. The Pasha led the way 
into the dining-room, stopping in an ante-chamber, where a 
group of slaves were ready with pitchers, ewers and napkins, 
and we performed the customary washing of hands. The 
Pasha then took his seat at the round table, and pointed out 
his place to each guest. Dr. Knoblecher and myself sat on 
his right, Dr. Reitz and Rufaa. Bey on his left, and Ali Bey 
Khasib opposite. There were no plates, but each of us had a 
silver knife, spoon and fork, and the arrangement was so far in 
Frank style that we sat upon chairs instead of the floor. The 
only ceremony observed was, that the Pasha first tasted each 
dish as it was brought upon the table, after which the rest of us 
followed. "We all ate soup from the same tureen, and buried our 
several right hands to the knuckles in the fat flesh of the sheep 
which was afterwards set before us. Claret was poured out 
for the Franks and Rufaa Bey (whose Moslem principles had 
been damaged by ten years residence in Paris), the Pasha and 



292 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Ali Bey alone abstaining. There were twenty courses in all, 
and the cookery was excellent. Besides the delicate Turkish 
compounds of meat and vegetables, delicious fish from the 
White Nile and fruits from the Pasha's garden, we had blanc 
mange and several varieties of French patisserie. At the close 
of the repast, a glass bowl containing a cool drink made from 
dried figs, quinces and apricots, was placed upon the table. 
The best possible humor prevailed, and I enjoyed the dinner 
exceedingly, the more so because I had not expected to find 
such a high degree of civilization in Soudan. 

We had afterwards coffee and pipes in the reception-room, 
and about ten in the evening took leave of the Pasha and walk- 
ed home, preceded by attendants carrying large glass lanterns. 
After accompanying Dr. Knoblecher to the gate of the Mission, 
Ali Bey Khasib took my hand, Bufaa Bey that of the Con- 
sul, and we walked to the residence of the Bey, who detained us 
an hour by the narration of the injuries and indignities which 
had been inflicted upon him by order of Abbas Pasha. 
The latter, on coming into power, took especial care to remove 
all those officers who had been favorites of Mohammed Ali. 
Many of them were men of high attainments and pure charac- 
ter, who had taken an active part in carrying out the old 
Pasha's measures of reform. Among them was Rufaa Bey, 
who, with several of his associates, was sent to Khartoum, os- 
tensibly for the purpose of founding a College there, but in 
reality as a banishment from Egypt. He had been there a 
year and a half at the time of my visit, yet no order had been 
received from Cairo relative to the College. This state of in- 
action and uncertainty, combined with the effect of the climate, 
had already terminated the lives of two of his fellow-profes- 



FRANKS AND COPTS. 293 

eors, and it was no doubt the design of Abbas Pasha to relieve 
himself of all of them by the same means. When I heard this 
story, the truth of which Dr. Hertz confirmed, I could readily 
account for the bitterness of the curses which the venerable 
old Bey heaped upon the head of his tyrannical ruler. 

The Frank population of Khartoum was not large, consist- 
ing, besides Dr. Reitz and the priests of the Catholic Mission, 
of Dr. Peney, a French physician, Dr. Vierthaler, a Grerman, 
and an Italian apothecary, the two former of whom were in the 
Egyptian service. Dr. Peney had been ten years in Soudan, 
and knew the whole country, from the mountains of Fazogl to 
the plains of Takka, on the Atbara River, and the Shangalla 
forests on the Abyssinian frontier. He was an exceedingly 
intelligent and courteous person, and gave me much interesting 
information, concerning the regions he had visited and the 
habits of the different tribes of Soudan. I had afterwards 
personal opportunity of verifying the correctness of many of 
his statements. There were a few Coptic merchants in the 
place, and on the second day after my arrival I had an 
opportunity of witnessing the New- Year ceremonies of their 
Church, which, like the Greek, still retains the old style. The 
service, which was very similar to a Catholic mass, was chant- 
ed in musical Arabic, and at its close we were presented with 
small cakes of unleavened flour, stamped with a cross. At the 
conclusion of the ceremonies coffee was given to us in an outer 
court, with the cordial " Haneean ! " (a wish equivalent to 
the Latin prosit, or "may it benefit you! ") — to which we re- 
plied: " Allah Haneek J '" (may Grod give you benefit !) 

Dr. Reitz took me one day to visit the celebrated Sitteh 
(Lady) Nasra, the daughter of the last King of Sennaar and 



294 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

brother of the present Shekh of that province. She is a woman 
of almost masculine talent and energy, and may be said to gov- 
ern Sennaar at present. All the Arab shekh s, as well as the 
population at large, have the greatest respect for her, and in- 
rariably ask her advice, in any crisis of affairs. Her brother, 
[dris Wed Adlan, notwithstanding his nominal subjection to 
Egypt, still possesses absolute sway over several hundred vil- 
lages, and is called King of Kulle. The Lady Nasra retains 
the title of Sultana, on account of her descent from the ancient 
royal house of Sennaar. She has a palace at Soriba, on the 
Blue Nile, which, according to Lepsius, exhibits a degree of 
wealth and state very rare in Soudan. She was then in 
Khartoum on a visit, with her husband, Mohammed Defalleh, 
the sou of a former Vizier of her father, King Adlan. 

We found the Lady Nasra at home, seated on a carpet in 
her audience-hall, her husband and Shekh Abd-el-Kader — the 
Shekh of Khartoum, who married her daughter by a former 
husband — occupying an adjacent carpet. She gave the Consul 
her hand, saluted me, as a stranger, with an inclination of her 
head, and we seated ourselves on the floor opposite to her. 
She was about forty-five years old, but appeared younger, and 
still retained the traces of her former beauty. Her skin was 
a pale bronze color, her eyes large and expressive, and her face 
remarkable for its intelligence and energy. All her motions 
were graceful and dignified, and under more favorable circum- 
stances she might have become a sort of Ethiopian Zenobia. 
She wore a single robe of very fine white muslin, which she 
sometimes folded so as nearly to conceal her features, and 
sometimes allowed to fall to her waist, revealing the somewhat 
over-ripe charms of her bosom. A heavy ring of the native 



VISIT TO THE PRINCESS OF SENNAAR. 295 

gold of Kasan hung from her nose, and others adorned her fin- 
gers. Dr. Reitz explained to her that I was not a Frank, hut 
came from a great country on the other side of the world. 
She spoke of the visit of Dr. Lepsius, at Soriba, and said that 
he was the only far-travelled stranger she had seen, except 
myself. I took occasion to say that I had frequently heard of 
her in my native land ; that her name was well-known all over 
the world ; and that the principal reason of my visit to Sou- 
ian, was the hope of seeing her. She was not in the least flat- 
tered by these exaggerated compliments, but received them as 
quietly as if they were her right. She was a born queen, and 
I doubt whether any thing upon the earth would have been 
able to shake her royal indifference. 

Her slaves were all girls of twelve to fourteen years of age, 
naked except the rdhad, or girdle of leathern fringe about the 
loins. They had evidently been chosen for their beauty, and 
two of them, although as black as cast-iron statues, were in- 
comparable for the symmetry of their forms and the grace of 
their movements. They brought us pipes and coffee, and when 
not employed, stood in a row at the bottom of the room, with 
their hands folded upon their breasts. Dinner was just ready, 
and we were invited to partake of it. The Sultana had al -' 
ready dined in solitary state, so her husband, Shekh Abd-el- 
Kader, the Consul and I, seated ourselves cross-legged on the 
floor, around the huge bowl containing an entire sheep stuffed 
with rice. We buried our fingers in the hot and smoking flesh, 
and picked the choicest pieces from the ribs and flank, occa- 
sionally taking a handful of rice from the interior The only 
additional dish was a basket of raw onions and radishes. Be- 
fore each of us stood a slave with a napkin and a large glass 



290 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of om bilbil — the " mother of nightingales." After drinking, 
we returned the glass to the slave's hand, she standing all the 
while immovable as a statue. After we had eaten our fill of 
roast mutton and raw onions, they brought a dish of prepared 
dourra, called abri, which strongly resembles the pinole of 
Mexico. The grain is pounded very fine, sifted, mixed with a 
little sugar and water, and made into thin, dry leaves, as white 
and delicate as cambric. It is considered very nourishing, es- 
pecially on a journey, for which purpose it is used by the rich 
shekhs of Soudan. 

As we took our leave, the Sultana, observing that our cane 
batons, which we had just purchased in the bazaar, were of 
very indifferent quality, ordered two others to be brought, of a 
fine yellow wood, resembling box, which is found in the moun- 
tains on the Abyssinian frontier, and gave them to us 



RECENT EXPLORATION OF SOUDAN. 297 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE COUNTRIES OF SOUDAN. 

Recent Explorations of Soudan— Limit of the Tropical Rains — The Conquest of Ethio- 
pia—Countries Tributary to Egypt — Tho District of Takka — Expedition of Moussa 
Bey — The Athara River — The Abyssinian Frontier — Christian Ruins of Abou-Ha 
rass — The Kingdom of Sennaar — Kordofan — Dar-FCir — The Princess of Dar-Fiir in 
Khartoum— Her Visit to Dr. Reitz— The Unknown Countries of Central Africa. 

Until within a recent period, but little has been known of the 
geography and topography of the eastern portion of Central 
Africa. Few English travellers have made these regions the 
subject of their investigation, their attention having been prin- 
cipally directed towards the countries on the western coast. 
The Niger, in fact, has been for them a more interesting prob- 
lem than the Nile. The German travellers Riippell and Rus- 
segger, however, by their explorations within the last twenty- 
five years, have made important contributions to our knowledge 
of Eastern Soudan, while D'Arnaud, Werne, and more than 
all, Dr. Knoblecher, have carried our vision far into the heart 
of the mysterious regions beyond. Still, the results of these 
explorations are far from being generally known, or even rep 
resented upon our maps. Geographical charts are still issued, 
in which the conjectured Mountains of the Moon continue to 
13* 



'298 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

stretch their ridges across the middle of Africa, in latitudes 
where the latest travellers find a plain as level as the sea. A 
few words, therefore, concerning the character and relative po- 
sition of the different countries of which I have occasion to 
speak, may make these sketches of African life and landscapes 
more intelligible to many readers. 

As far as southern Nubia, with the exception of the Oases 
in the Libyan Desert, the Nile is the only agent of productive- 
ness. Beyond the narrow limits of his bounteous valley, there 
is little except red sand and naked rock, from the Red Sea to 
the Atlantic. On reaching lat. 19°, however, a change takes 
place in the desert landscapes. Here the tropical rains, which 
are unknown in Egypt and Northern Nubia, fail every sum- 
mer, though in diminished quantity. The dry, gravelly plains, 
nevertheless, exhibit a scattering growth of grass and thorny 
shrubs, and springs are frequently found among the mountain 
ranges. As we proceed southward, the vegetation increases 
in quantity ; the grass no longer keeps the level of the plain, 
but climbs the mountain-sides, and before reaching Khartoum, 
in lat. 15° 40 ; north, we have passed the limit of the Desert 
The wide plains stretching thence eastward to the Atbara, and 
westward beyond Kordofan, are savannas of rank grass, cross- 
ed here and there by belts of the thorny mimosa, and differing 
little in aspect from the plains of California during the dry sea- 
son. The Arabs who inhabit them are herdsmen, and own 
vast flocks of camels and sheep. The Nile here is no longer 
the sole river, and loses his title of " The Sea," which he owns 
in Egypt. The Atbara, which flows down to him from the 
Abyssinian Alps, has many tributaries of its own , the Blue 
Nile, between Khartoum and Sennaar, receives the large 



THE CONQUEST OF ETHIOPIA. 299 

streams of the Rahad and the Dender ; and the White Nile, 
though flowing for the greater part of his known course 
through an immense plain, boasts two important affluents — 
the Sobat and the Bahr el-Ghazal. The soil, climate, produc- 
tions and character of the scenery of this region are therefore 
very different from Egypt. 

Before the conquest of Soudan by Mohammed Ali, little 
was known of the country between the Ethiopian Nile and the 
Red Sea, or of Central Africa south of the latitude of Kordo- 
fan and Sennaar. The White Nile, it is true, was known to 
exist, but was considered as a tributary stream. It was ex- 
tremely difficult and dangerous to proceed beyond Nubia, and 
then only in company with the yearly caravans which passed 
between Assouan and Sennaar. Ibrahim Pasha, Ismail Pasha, 
and Mohammed Bey Defterdar, between the years 1820 and 
1825, gradually subjugated and attached to the rule of Egypt 
the countries of Berber, Shendy and Sennaar, as far as the 
mountains of Fazogl, in lat. 11°, on the south-western frontier 
of Abyssinia, the wild domains of the Shukorees, the Bisha- 
rees, the Hallengas and Hadendoas, extending to the Bed Sea, 
and embracing the seaport of Sowakin, and the kingdom of 
Kordofan, west of the Nile, and bounded by the large and 
powerful negro kingdom of Bar-Fur. The Egyptian posses- 
sions in Soudan are nearly as extensive as all Egypt, Nubia 
not included, and might become even richer and more flourish- 
ing under a just and liberal policy of government. The plains 
on both sides of the Nile might be irrigated to a much greater 
extent than in Egypt, and many vast tracts of territory given 
up to the nomadic tribes, could readily be reclaimed from the 
wilderness. The native inhabitants are infinitely more stupid 



800 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and degraded than the Fellahs of Egypt, bat that they are ca- 
pable of great improvement is shown by the snccess attending 
the efforts of the Catholic priests in Khartoum, in educating 
children. The terrible climate of Soudan will always be a 
drawback to its physical prosperity, yet even this would be 
mitigated, in some measure, were the soil under cultivation. 

As I followed the course of the Nile, from the northern 
limit of the tropical rains to Khartoum, my narrative will have 
given some idea of the country along his banks. The terri- 
tory to the east, towards and beyond the Atbara, is still in a 
great measure unexplored. Burckhardt was the first Euro- 
pean who visited it, but his route lay among the mountain- 
ranges near and parallel to the coast of the Red Sea. The 
long chain of Djebel Langay, which he crossed, is three to five 
thousand feet in height, and, like the mountain-spine of the 
island of Ceylon, never has the same season on both sides at 
once. When it rains on the eastern slopes, the western are 
dry, and the contrary. There is another and still higher chain 
near the coast, but the greater part of this region consists of 
vast plains, tenanted by the Arab herdsmen, and rising gradu- 
ally towards the south into the first terraces of the table-land 
of Abyssinia. The land of the Shukorees and the Hallengas, 
lying on both sides of the Atbara, is called Belacl el Tallica. 
Dr. Reitz visited it during the summer of 1851, in company 
with the military expedition under Moussa Bey, and travelled 
for three or four weeks through regions where no European 
had been before him. 

Leaving the town of Shendy, he travelled eastward foi 
nine days over unbroken plains of grass, abounding with ga- 
zelles and hyenas, to a village called Groz Radjeb, on the At- 



DR. REITz's JOURNEY TO TAKKA. 801 

bava River. This belongs to the Shukorees, against whom the 
expedition was in part directed. He then crossed the river, 
and travelled for two or three weeks through a broken moun- 
tain country, inhabited by the wandering races of the Hallen- 
ges and Hadendoas. The mountains, which were from two to 
three thousand feet in height, were crested with walls of naked 
porphyry rock, but their lower slopes were covered with grass 
and bushes, and peopled by myriads of apes. Between the 
ranges were many broad and beautiful valleys, some of which 
were inhabited. Here the vegetable and animal world was far 
richer than on the Nile. The Consul was obliged to follow 
the movements of the expedition, and therefore could not trace 
out any regular plan of exploration. After seeing just enough 
to whet his curiosity to penetrate further, Moussa Bey return- 
ed to Gi-oz Radjeb. His route then followed the course of the 
Atbara, for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, to the 
town of Sofie, on the Abyssinian frontier. The river, which is 
a clear and beautiful stream, has a narrow border of trees and 
underwood, and flows in a winding course through a region of 
low, grassy hills. By using the water for irrigation, the coun- 
try, which is now entirely uncultivated, might be made T2ry 
productive. The Shukorees possess immense herds of camels, 
and a Jiegin, or trained dromedary, which the Consul purchas- 
ed from them, was one of the strongest and fleetest which I 
saw in Africa. 

Near Sofie the savannas of grass give place to dense tropi- 
cal forests, with a rank undergrowth which is often impenetra- 
ble. Here, in addition to the lion and leopard, which are 
common to all Soudan, the expedition saw large herds of the 
elephant and rhinoceros. The woods were filled with birds of 



302 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

brilliant plumage, and the vegetable world was rich and gor- 
geous beyond description. The Consul remained but a short 
time here, and then travelled westward to the town of Abou- 
Harass on the Blue Nile, visiting on the way a curious isolated 
mountain, called Djebel Attesh. Near Abou-Harass are "the 
ruins of an ancient Christian town, probably dating from the 
fourth or fifth century, about which time Christianity, pre- 
viously planted in Abyssinia, began to advance northward to- 
wards Nubia. The Consul obtained from the Governor of 
Abou-Harass three iron crosses of a peculiar form, a number 
of beads which had belonged to a rosary, and a piece of in- 
cense — all of which were found in removing the bricks used to 
build the Pasha's palace and other edifices in Khartoum. The 
room which I occupied during my stay in Khartoum was paved 
with the same bricks. These remains are in curious contrast 
with the pyramids of Meroe and the temples of Mesowurat. 
The Christian and Egyptian Faiths, advancing towards each 
other, almost met on these far fields. 

The former kingdom of Sennaar included the country be- 
tween the two Niles — except the territory of the Shillooks — 
as far south as lat. 12°. It is bounded by Abyssinia on the 
east, and by the mountains of the savage Galla tribes, on the 
south. The Djezeereh (Island) el JEfoye, as the country be- 
tween the rivers is called, is for the most part a plain of grass. 
Towards the south, there are some low ranges of hills, followed 
by other plains, which extend to the unknown mountain region, 
and abound with elephants and lions. The town of Sennaar, 
once the capital of this region and the residence of its Meks or 
Kings, is now of little importance. It was described to me as 
a collection of mud huts, resembling Shendy. The Egyptian 



KORDOFAN. 303 

rule extends ten days' journey further, to Fazogl, where the 
fine timber in the mountains and the gold-bearing sands of 
Kasan have given rise to the establishment of a military post. 
Sennaar, as well as Kordofan, Berber and Dongola, is govern- 
ed by a Bey, appointed by the Pasha of Soudan. It is only 
two weeks' journey thence to Grondar, the capital of Amhara, 
the principal Abyssinian kingdom. I was told that it is not 
difficult for merchants to visit -the latter place, but that any 
one suspected of being a person of consequence is detained 
there and not allowed to leave agajn. I had a strong curiosity 
to see something of Abyssinia, and had I been quite sure that 
I should not be taken for a person of consequence, might have 
made the attempt to reach Grondar. 

Kordofan lies west of the White Nile, and consists entire- 
ly of great plains of grass and thorns, except in the southern 
part, where there is a mountain range called Djebel Dyer, in- 
habited by emigrants from Dongola. It is not more than two 
hundred miles in breadth, from east to west. Its capital, 
Obeid, lies in lat. 13° 12 x north, and is a mere collection of 
mud huts. Mr. Peterick, the English Vice-Consul for Sou- 
dan, to whom I had letters from Mr. Murray, the English 
Consul-Greneral in Cairo, had taken up his residence in Obeid. 
The soil of Kordofan is sterile, and the water is considered 
very unhealthy for foreigners. Capt. Peel gave me such a de- 
scription of its endless thickets of thorns, its miserable popula- 
tion and its devastating fevers, that I lost all desire to visit it. 
The Governor, Abd-el-Kader Bey, was in Khartoum, and Dr. 
Beitz intended making a journey through the country in com- 
pany with him. There is a caravan route of twenty days between 
Obeid and Dongola, through a wild region called the Beyooda, 



304 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

or Bedjuda. A few degrees further north, it would be a bar- 
ren desert, but here it is an alternation of wadys, or valleys, 
with ranges of porphyry mountains, affording water, trees, and 
sumeient grass for the herds of the wandering Arabs. It is 
inhabited by two tribes — the Kababish and the Howoweet, 
who differ strongly from the Arabs east of the Nile, in their 
appearance and habits. The latter, by their superior intelli- 
gence and their remarkable personal beauty, still attest their 
descent from the tribes of Hedjaz and Yemen. The tribes in 
the western desert are more allied to the Tibboos, and other 
tenants of the Great Zahara. The caravans on this road are 
exposed to the danger of attacks from the negroes of Dar-Eur, 
who frequently waylay small parties, murder the individuals 
and carry off the camels and goods. 

The great kingdom of Dar-Eur offers a rich field for some 
future explorer. The extensive regions it incloses are suppos- 
ed to furnish the key to the system of rivers and mountain- 
chains of Central Africa. Through the fear and jealousy of 
its rulers, no stranger has been allowed to pass its borders, 
since the visit of Mr. Browne, half a century ago. Of late, 
however, the relations between the Egyptian rulers in Soudan 
and the Sultan of Dar-Eur have been quite amicable, and if 
nothing occurs to disturb this harmony there is some hope that 
the ban will be removed. Lattif Pasha informed me that he 
had written to the Sultan on behalf of Capt. Peel, who wished 
to pass through Dar-Eur and reach Bornou. He had at that 
time received no answer, but it had been intimated, unofficial- 
ly, that the Sultan would reply, giving Capt. Peel permission 
to enter the country and travel in it, but not to pass beyond ifc. 
There is an almost continual war between the Sultans of Bar- 



THE PRINCESS OF DAR-FUR. 305 

nou and Dar-Fur, and the Pasha was of the opinion that it 
would he impossihle to traverse Africa from east to west, in 
the line of those states. 

A circumstance occurred lately, which may help to open 
Dar-Fur to Europeans. The Sitteh (Lady) Sowakin, the aunt 
of Sultan Adah, the present monarch of that kingdom, is a 
zealous Moslem, and lately determined to make a pilgrimage 
to the grave of the Prophet. She arrived in Khartoum in Au- 
gust, 1851, attended by a large retinue of officers, attendants 
and slaves, and after remaining a few days descended the Nile 
to El Mekheyref, crossed the Desert to Sowakin, on the Ked 
Sea, and sailed thence for Djidda, the port of Mecca. During 
her stay Lattif Pasha was exceedingly courteous to her, intro- 
ducing her to his wives, bestowing upon her handsome presents, 
and furnishing her with boats and camels for her journey. Dr. 
Reitz availed himself of the occasion to make the people of 
Dar-Fur better acquainted with Europeans. All the Frank 
residents assembled at his house, in Christian costume, and 
proceeded to the residence of the Lady Sowakin. They found 
her sitting in state, with two black slaves before her on their 
hands and knees, motionless as sphinxes. On each side stood 
her officers and interpreters. She was veiled, as well as her 
female attendants, and all exhibited the greatest surprise and 
curiosity at the appearance of the Franks. The gifts they laid 
before her — silks, fine soaps, cosmetics, bon-bons, &c. — she ex- 
amined with childish delight, and when the Consul informed 
her that the only object of the Europeans in wishing to enter 
Dar-Fur was to exchange such objects as these for gum and 
elephants' teeth, she promised to persuade Sultan Adah to open 
his kingdom to them. 



306 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The next day her principal officers visited the Consul's 
house, and spent a long time examining its various wonders. 
The pictures, books and furniture filled them with astonish- 
ment, and they went from one object to another, like children, 
uttering exclamations of surprise and delight. What most 
startled them was a box of lucifer matches, which was entirely 
beyond their comprehension. They regarded the match with 
superstitious awe, and seemed to consider that the fire was pro- 
duced by some kind of magic. Their relation of what they 
saw so excited the curiosity of the Lady Sowakin, that she 
came on the following day, with her women. She was no less 
astonished than her attendants had been, but was most attract- 
ed by the Consul's large mirror. She and her women spent 
half an hour before it, making gestures, and unable to compre- 
hend how they were mimicked by the reflected figures. As 
she was unacquainted with its properties, she threw back her 
veil to see whether the image would show her face. The Con- 
sul was standing behind her, and thus caught sight of her fea- 
tures ; she was black, with a strongly marked but not unpleas- 
ant countenance, and about forty-five years of age. He had a 
breakfast prepared for the ladies, but on reaching the room the 
attendants all retired, and he was informed that the women of 
rank in Dar-Fflr never eat in the presence of the men. After 
they had finished the repast, he observed that they had not 
only partaken heartily of the various European dishes, but had 
taken with them what they could not eat, so that the table ex- 
hibited nothing but empty dishes. When they left, the Lady 
reiterated her promise, and added that if the Consul would 
visit Dar-Fur, the Sultan would certainly present him with 
many camel-loads of elephants' teeth, in consideration of his 
courtesy to her. 



UNKNOWN COUNTRIES. 307 

To the westward of Dar-Fur, and between that country and 
Bornou, lies the large kingdom of Waday, which has never been 
visited by a European. I learned from some Kordofan mer- 
chants, who had visited the frontiers of Dar-Fur on their trad- 
ing expeditions, that Sultan Adah had conquered a great part 
of "Waday, and would probably soon become involved in war 
with the Sultan of Bornou. It is said that there is in the 
country of Waday a lake called Fittre, which is a hundred 
and fifty miles in length, and receives several rivers. At the 
south-western extremity of Dar-Fur, in lat. 6° N. there is a 
small country, called Fertit. I often heard it mentioned by 
the Ethiopian traders, one of Whom showed me a snuff-box, 
which he had bought of a native of the country. It was made 
from the hard shell of a fruit about the size of an orange, with 
a stopper roughly wrought of silver. Almost the entire region 
south of lat. 10° N. and lying between the White Nile and 
the G-ulf of Guinea is unknown ground, and presents a rich 
field for future explorers. 

The difficulties and dangers which have hitherto attended 
the path of African discovery, are rapidly diminishing, and the 
time is not far distant when eveiy mystery, hidden in the heart 
of that wonderful Continent, will be made clear. Where a 
traveller has once penetrated, he smoothes the way for those 
who follow, and that superior intelligence which renders the 
brute creation unable to bear the gaze of a human eye, is the 
defence of the civilized man against the barbarian. Bruce, 
journeying from Abyssinia to Egypt, in the year 1772, was beset 
by continual dangers, and even Burckhardt, in 1814, though 
successfully disguised as a Mussulman shekh, or saint, was oblig- 
ed to keep his journal by stealth. At present, however, a 



308 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Frank may travel in comparative safety, from Cairo to the 
borders of Dar-Fur and Abyssinia, while the White Nile and 
its tributaries afford avenues to the very heart of the unexplor- 
ed regions beyond. The climate is the greatest obstacle in the 
way of discovery, and the traveller whose temperament is best 
adapted for the heats of the inter-tropical zone, possesses the 
best chance of success. 



EXCURSIONS AROUND KHARTOUM. 309 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

EXCURSIONS AND PREPARATIONS. 

Excursions around Khartoum — A Race into the Desert — Euphorbia Forest — The 
Banks of the Blue Nile— A Saint's Grave — The Confluence of the Two Niles— Mag- 
nitude of the Nile — Comparative Size of the Rivers — Their Names — Desire to pene- 
trate further into Africa — Attractions of the White Nile — Engage the Boat John 
Ledyard — Former Restrictions against exploring the River — Visit to the Pasha — 
Despotic Hospitality — Achmet's Misgivings — We set saiL 

My morning rides with Dr. Reitz, around Khartoum, grad- 
ually extended themselves into the neighboring country, with- 
in the limits which a fast dromedary could reach in two hours' 
travel. In this way I became familiar with the scenery along 
the banks of both Niles, and the broad arid plains between 
them. As I rarely appeared in public except in the Consul's 
company, and attended with all the state which his household 
could command, I was looked upon by the inhabitants as a 
foreign prince of distinguished rank. The Pasha's soldiers 
duly presented arms, and the people whom I met in the streets 
stopped and saluted me profoundly, as I' passed. The Consul 
had succeeded in making a strong impression of his own power 
and importance, and this was reflected upon his guest One 



310 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

morning, as we were riding towards the palace, a man cried 
out : " May God prolong your days, Consul ! and the days 
of the strange lord, — for you make a grand show with your 
horses, every day ! " 

There was one of our rides which I never call to mind with- 
out a leap of the heart. The noble red stallion which I usual- 
ly mounted had not forgotten the plains of Dar-Fur, where he 
was bred, and whenever we came upon the boundless level ex- 
tending southward from the town, his wild blood was aroused. 
He pricked up his ears, neighed as grandly as the war-horse 
of Job, champed furiously against the restraining bit, and ever 
and anon cast a glance of his large, brilliant eye backward at 
me, half in wonder, half in scorn, that I did not feel the same 
desire. The truth is, I was tingling from head to foot with 
equal excitement, but Dr. Reitz was a thorough Englishman in 
his passion for trotting, and was vexed whenever I rode at any 
other pace. Once, however, the sky was so blue, the morning 
air so cool and fresh, and the blood so lively in my veins, that 
I answered the fierce questioning of Sultan's eye with an in- 
voluntary shout, pressed my knees against his sides and gave 
him the rein. Mercury, what a rush followed ! We cut 
the air like the whizzing shaft from a Saracen crossbow ; Sul- 
tan stretched out until his powerful neck was almost on a level 
with his back, and the glorious rhythm of his hoofs was accom- 
panied by so little sense of effort, that it seemed but the throb- 
bing of his heart, keeping time with my own. His course was 
as straight as a sunbeam, swerving not a hair's-breadth to the 
right or left, but forward; forward into the freedom of the 
Desert. Neck and neck with him careered the Consul's milk- 
white stallion, and I was so lost in the divine excitement of 



A RACE INTO THE DESEKT. 311 

our speed, that an hour had passed before I was cool enough 
to notice where we were going. The Consul finally called out 
to me to stop, and I complied, sharing the savage resistance of 
Sultan, who neighed and plunged with greater ardor than at 
the start. The minarets of Khartoum had long since disap- 
peared ; we were in the centre of a desolate, sandy plain, bro- 
ken here and there by clumps of stunted mimosas — a dreary 
landscape, but glorified by the sunshine and the delicious air. 
We rode several miles on the return track, before we met the 
pursuing attendants, who had urged their dromedaries into a 
gallop, and were sailing after us like a flock of ostriches. 

A few days after my arrival, we had the dromedaries sad- 
dled and rode to Kereff, a village on the Blue Nile, about two 
leagues distant. The path was over a wide plain, covered with 
dry grass, and resembling an Illinois prairie after a long 
drought. In the rainy season it is green and luxuriant with 
grass and a multitude of flowers. The only trees were the 
savage white thorn of the Desert, until we approached the 
river, where we found forests of the large euphorbia, which I 
had first noticed as a shrub in Upper Egypt. It here became 
a tree, upwards of twenty feet in height. The branches bent 
over my head, as I rode through on the Consul's tallest drom- 
edary. The trees were all in blossom, and gave out a subtle, 
sickening odor. The flowers appear in whorls around the stem, 
at the base of the leaves ; the corolla is entire, but divided 
into five points, white in the centre, with a purple stain at the 
extremity. The juice of this plant is viscid and milky, and 
the Arabs informed me that if a single drop of it gets into the 
eye it will produce instant blindness. 

Beyond these thickets extended patches of wheat and cot- 



312 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

• 

ton to the banks of the Blue Nile, where the hump-hacked 
oxen of Sennaar were lazily turning the creaking wheels of the 
saMes. The river had here a breadth of more than half a 
mile, and shone blue and brilliant in the morning sun. Before 
reaching Kereff, we visited five villages, all built of mats and 
clay. The inhabitants were warming themselves on the sunny 
side of the huts, where they still shivered in the cold north- 
wind. At Kereff, two men brought a large gourd, filled with 
sour milk, which was very cool and refreshing. The principal 
wealth of the people consists in their large flocks of sheep and 
goats. They cultivate barely sufficient wheat and dourra to 
supply them with a few cakes of coarse bread, and their favor- 
ite beverage of om bilbil. 

On our return we passed the grave of a native saint, which 
was decorated with rows of pebbles and a multitude of white 
pennons, fluttering from the tops of poles stuck in the ground. 
Several women were seated at the head, apparently paying their 
devotions to the ghost of the holy man. The older ones were 
unveiled and ugly, but there was a damsel of about eighteen, 
who threw part of her cotton mantle over her face, yet allow- 
ed us to see that she was quite handsome. She had a pale 
yellow complexion, showing her Abyssinian descent, large, al- 
mond-shaped eyes, and straight black hair which diffused an 
odor of rancid butter. I found it most agreeable to admire 
her beauty from the windward side. An old beggar-woman, 
whose gray hair, skinny face and bleared eyes, flashing from 
the bottom of deep sockets, made her a fitting picture of a 
Lapland witch, came up and touched our hands, which she 
could barely reach as we sat on the dromedaries, which saved 
us the horror of having her kiss them. We gave her a back- 



THE JUNCTION OF THE TWO NILES. 313 

sheesh, which she took as if it had been her right. After in- 
voking the name of Allah many times, she went to the grave 
and brought each of us a handful of dirt, which we carefully 
put into our pockets, but as carefully emptied out again after 
we had reached home. 

The next morning I rode with the Consul to the junction 
of the two Niles, about a mile and a half to the west of Khar- 
toum. The land all around is low, and the two rivers meet at 
right angles, but do not mingle their waters till they have roll- 
ed eight or ten miles in their common bed. The White Nile 
is a light-brown, muddy color, the Blue Nile a dark bluish- 
green. Both rivers are nearly of equal breadth at the point 
of confluence, but the current of the latter is much the stronger. 
There is a low green island, called Omdurman, in the White 
Nile, at its junction. The ferry-boat had just brought over a 
party of merchants from Kordofan, with their packages of gum 
A number of large vessels, belonging to the government, were 
hauled up on the bank, and several Arabs, under the direction 
of a Turkish ship-builder, were making repairs. We rode a 
short distance up the White Nile, over a beach which was 
deeply printed with the enormous foot-prints of a whole herd 
of hippopotami, and then home through the fields of blossom- 
ing beans. 

The Nile was to me a source of greater interest than all 
the negro kingdoms between Khartoum and Timbuctoo. 
There, two thousand miles from his mouth, I found his current 
as broad, as strong, and as deep as at Cairo, and was no nearer 
the mystery of his origin. If I should ascend the western of 
his two branches, I might follow his windings twelve hundred 
miles further and still find a broad and powerful stream, af 
14 



314 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

whose source even the tribes that dwell in those far regions are 
ignorant. I am confident that when the hidden fountains shall 
at last he reached, and the problem of twenty centuries solved, 
the entire length of the Nile will be found to be not less than 
four thousand miles, and he will then take his rank with the 
Mississippi and the Amazon — a sublime trinity of streams ! 
There is, in some respects, a striking resemblance between the 
Nile and the former river. The Missouri is the true Missis- 
sippi, rolling the largest flood and giving his color to the min- 
gled streams. So of the White Nile, which is broad and tur- 
bid, and pollutes the clear blue flood that has usurped his name 
and dignity. In spite of what geographers may say — and 
they are still far from being united on the subject — the Blue 
Nile is not the true Nile. There, at the point of junction 
his volume of water is greater,* but he is fresh from the moun- 
tains and constantly fed by large, unfailing affluents, while the 
White Nile has rolled for more than a thousand miles on near- 
ly a dead level, through a porous, alluvial soil, in which he 
loses more water than he brings with him. 

* Capt. Peel, who measured the volume of water in the two rivers, 
gives the following result: Breadth of the Blue Nile at Khartoum, *768 
yards; average depth, 16.11 feet; average current, 1.564 knots; volume 
of water, 5,820,600 cubic feet per minute. Breadth of the "White Mle, 
immediately above the junction, 483 yards ; average depth, 13.92 feet; 
average current, 1.47 knots ; volume of water, 2,985,400 feet per minute. 
Breadth of the Nile below the junction, 110*7 yards; average depth, 
14.38 feet; average current, 2 knots; volume of water, 9,526/700 cubic 
feet per minute. This measurement was made in the latter part of Octo- 
ber, 1851. It can hardly be considered conclusive, as during the pre- 
ceding summer the rains had been unusually heavy in the mountains of 
Abyssinia, which may have occasioned a greater dispropoi'tion than 
usual, in the volume of the two rivers. 



THE BLUE NILE. 315 

The Blue Nile, whose source the honest, long-slandered 
Bruce did actually discover, rises near lat. 1 1 ° N. in the moun- 
tains of G-odjam, on the south-western frontier of Abyssinia. 
Thence it flows northward into the great lake of Dembea, or 
Tzana, near its southern extremity. The lake is shallow and 
muddy, and the river carries his clear flood through it without 
mixing. He then flows to the south and south-east, under the 
name of Tzana, along the borders of the kingdom of Shoa, to 
between lat. 9° and 10°, whence he curves again to the north 
and finds his way through the mountains of Eazogl to the plains 
of Sennaar. His entire length cannot be less than eight hun- 
dred miles. The stream is navigable as far as the mountains , 
about three hundred miles from Khartoum, where it is inter- 
rupted by rapids. The Arabic name El-bahr el-Azrek, 
means rather "black" than "blue," the term azrek being 
used with reference to objects of a dark, blue-black color ; and 
besides, it is called black, in contradistinction to the Bahr el- 
Abiad, the white Nile. The boatmen here also frequently 
speak of the black river as he, and the white as she. When I 
asked the reason of this, they replied that it was because the 
former had a stronger current. It is remarkable that the name 
" Nile," which is never heard in Egypt, (where the river is 
simply called el-bahr, " the sea,") should be retained in 
Ethiopia. There the boatmen speak of " el-bahr el-Nil," 
which name they also sometimes apply to the Blue Nile. It 
is therefore easy to understand why the latter river should have 
been looked upon as the main current of the Nile. 

After I had been eight or ten days in Khartoum, I began 
to think of penetrating further into the interior. My inten- 
tion, on leaving Cairo, was to push on as far as my time and 



316 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

means would allow, and the White Nile was the great point of 
attraction. The long journey I had already made in order to 
reach Soudan only whetted my desire of seeing more of the 
wild, barbaric life of Central Africa, and, owing to the good 
luck which had saved me from any delay on the road, I could 
spare three or four weeks for further journeys, before setting 
out on my return to Egypt. Some of my friends in Khar- 
toum counselled one plan and some another, but after distract- 
ing myself in a maze of uncertainties, I returned to my first 
love, and determined to make a voyage up the White Nile. 
There was little to be gained by visiting Kordcfan, as I had 
already seen Central African life to better advantage in Khar- 
toum. Sennaar is now only interesting as a station on the 
way to Abyssinia or the mountains of Fazogl, and in the wild 
regions along the Atbara it is impossible to travel without an 
armed escort. As it is exceedingly dangerous for a single boat 
to pass through the extensive negro kingdoms of the Shillooks 
and the Dinkas, I had hoped to accompany Dr. Knoblecher's 
expedition some distance up the river and then take my chance 
of returning. The boat belonging to the Catholic Mission, 
however, had not arrived from Cairo, and the season was so 
far advanced that the expedition had been postponed until the 
following November. At the time of my visit, nevertheless, a 
Maltese trader named Lattif Effendi, was fitting up two large 
vessels which were shortly to leave on a trading voyage which 
he intended pushing as far as the Bari country. I could have 
made arrangements to accompany him, but as he could not re- 
turn before some time in June, I should have been obliged, in 
that case, to pass the sickly season in Soudan — a risk scarcely 
worth the profit, as, with the best possible good Wk, J caighi 



ENGAGvNO a VESSEL. 317 

barely have reached the point attained hy Dr. Knobleeher. 
The Consul proposed my going with Lattif Effendi until I 
should meet the yearly expedition on its return, and then come 
down the river with it. This would have enabled me to pene- 
trate to lat. 9°, or perhaps 8°, but after passing the islands of 
the Shiilooks, one sees little except water, grass and mosqui- 
toes, until he reaches the land of the Kyks, in lat. 7°. After 
weighing carefully all the arguments on both sides, I decided 
to take a small boat and ascend as far as the islands. Here 
the new and rich animal and vegetable world of the magnifi- 
cent river begins to unfold, and in many respects it is the most 
impressive portion of his stream. 

I was fortunate in finding a small vessel, of the kind called 
sandal — the only craft in port, except the Pasha's dahabiyeh, 
which would have answered my purpose. It belonged to a fat 
old Turk, named Abou-Balta, from whom I engaged it for 
three hundred and twenty-five piastres. The crew consisted 
of a rais, five strong Dongolese sailors, and a black female 
slave, as cook. The rais knew the river, but positively refus- 
ed to take me further than the island of Aba, somewhere be- 
tween lat. 12° and 13°, on account of the danger of venturing 
among the Shiilooks, without an armed force. I named the 
boat the John Ledyard, in memory of the first American 
traveller in Africa. The name was none the less appropriate, 
since Ledyard was buried beside the Nile, at the outset of a 
journey undertaken for the purpose of discovering its sources. 
Dr. Hertz gave me two sheep as provision for the voyage, and 
the remainder of my outfit cost me about a hundred and twen- 
ty piastres in the bazaars of Khartoum. 

I reached Khartoum at a favorable season for making the 



318 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

voyage. Formerly, it had been very difficult for any Euro* 
pean to obtain permission to sail on the White Nile, owing to 
the trade of the river having been completely monopolized by 
the Pasha of Soudan, in defiance of the Treaty of 1838, which 
made the river free to merchants of all nations. No later 
than the previous winter, Count Dandolo, an Italian traveller 
who visited Khartoum, encountered much opposition before he 
succeeded in obtaining a boat for the Islands of the Shillooks. 
Owing to the vigorous efforts of Dr. Beitz, the monopoly had 
at last been broken down, and the military guard formerly 
stationed at the confluence of the two rivers, no longer existed. 
I did not even inform the Pasha of my intention to make the 
voyage until after I had taken the boat and completed my 
preparations. I then paid him a visit of ceremony, in com- 
pany with the Consul. He was very affable, and insisted on 
our remaining for dinner, although we had invited two friends 
to help us eat a roasted ram. We urged this in excuse, but 
he cut us off by exclaiming : "I am ruler here, and my com- 
mands dare not be disobeyed," and immediately sent a servant 
to order our guests, in his name, to eat the ram themselves. 
He then despatched messengers for Abd-el-Kader Bey, gover- 
nor of Kordofan, and Buffaa Bey, who were brought to the 
palace in the same arbitrary manner. Having thus secured 
his company, he retired for the usual prayers before dinner, 
leaving us to enjoy the preparatory pipe. Among the mani- 
fold dishes served at dinner, were three or four kinds of fish 
from the White Nile, all of them of excellent flavor. The 
Pasha continued his discussion of Louis Napoleon's coup 
d'etat, taking delight in recommending a sanguinary policy 
as the only course, and could not enough praise Sultan 



WE SET SAIL. . 319 

Mahmoud I. for his execution of forty thousand Janissaries 
in one day. 

Finally, on the morning of the 22d of January, my effects 
were all on board, and my rais and sailors in readiness. Ach- 
met and Ali preceded me to the boat with many misgivings, 
for we were now going into regions where the Pasha's name 
was scarcely known — where the Egyptian sway had never 
reached — a land of Icaffirs, or infidels, who were supposed to 
he nearly related to the terrible " Nyam-Nyams," the anthro- 
pophagi of Central Africa. Achmet could not comprehend 
my exhilaration of spirits, and in reply to my repeated ex- 
clamations of satisfaction and delight, observed, with a shake 
of the' head : ' : If it were not that we left Cairo on a lucky 
day, my master ! I should never expect to see Khartoum 
again." Fat Abou-Balta, who had promised to accompany me 
as far as the first village on the White Nile, did not make his 
appearance, and so we pushed off without him. Never was 
name more wrongly applied than that of Abou-Balta (the " fa- 
ther of hatchets "), for he weighed three hundred pounds, had 
a face like the full moon, and was the j oiliest Turk I ever saw. 
Dr. Reitz, whose hospitality knew no bounds, sent his drome- 
daries up the river the day previous, and accompanied me with 
his favorite servants — two ebony boys, with shining counte- 
nances and white and scarlet dresses. 




The White Nile. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



VOYAGE UP THE WHITE NILE. 



Departure from Kliartoum— We enter the White Nile— Mirage and Landscape— The 
Consul returns— Progress— Loss, of the Flag -Scenery of the Shores— Territory of 
the. Hassaniyehs— Curious Conjugal Custom— Multitudes of Water Fowls— Increas- 
ed Puchnessof Vegetation— Apes— Sunset on the White Nile— We reach the King- 
dom of the Shillook Negroes. 

"At night l.e heard the lion roar 

And the hyena scream, 
And the river-horse as he crashed the reeds 

Beside some hidden stream ; 
And it passed like a glorious roll of drums 

Through the triumph of his dream."— Longfeixc w. 

The men pushed away from shore with some difficulty, as a 
violent north-wind drove the boat hack, but the sail once un- 
furled, we shot like an arrow between the gardens of Khar- 
toum and the green shores of the island of Tuti. Before 



ENTERING THE WHITE NILE. 321 

reaching the confluence of the rivers, a jut of land obliged the 
sailors again to take to their poles and oars, but a short time 
sufficed to bring us to the turning-point. Here the colors of 
the different streams are strongly marked. They are actually 
blue and white, and meet in an even line, which can be seen 
extending far down the common tide. We tossed on the agi- 
tated line of their junction, but the wind carried us in a few 
minutes past the island of Omdurman, which lies opposite. 
The first American flag that ever floated over the White Nile, 
fluttered gayly at the mast-head, pointing to the south — to 
those vast, mysterious regions out of which the mighty stream 
finds its way. A flock of the sacred ibis alighted on the sandy 
shore of the island, where the tall king-heron, with his crest 
of stately feathers, watched us as he walked up and down. In 
front, over the island of Moussa Bey, a broad mirage united 
its delusive waters with those of the true river and lifted the 
distant shores so high above the horizon that they seemed 
floating in the air. The stream, which is narrow at its junc- 
tion with the Blue Nile, expanded to a breadth of two miles, 
and the shores ahead of us were so low that we appeared to be 
at the entrance of a great inland sea. Our course swerved to 
the eastward, so that we were in the rear of Khartoum, whose 
minaret was still visible when we were ten miles distant. The 
low mud dwellings of the town were raised to twice their real 
height, by the effect of the mirage. The shores on either side 
we.? sandy tracts, almost uncultivated, and covered with an 
abundant growth of thorns, mimosas and a small tree with 
thick green foliage. By twelve o'clock we reached the point 
where Dr. Heitz had sent his dromedaries, which were in 
readiness, kneeling on the beach. We could not approach the 
14* 



322 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

shore, on account of the mud, but the sailors carried us out on 
their shoulders. I rode with him to a small Arab hamlet, 
scattered among the thorny thickets. There were but two 
mud houses, the other dwellings being merely rude tents of 
grass matting ; few of the inhabitants were at home, but those 
few were peaceable and friendly. As the Consul had a ride 
of four or five hours before him, he wished me good luck and 
set off northward, while the sailors, who were in waiting, car- 
ried me back to the boat. 

All the afternoon I sped before a strong wind up the mag- 
nificent river. Its breadth varied from two to three miles, but 
its current was shallow and sluggish. The shores were sandy, 
and covered with groves of the gum-producing mimosa, which 
appeared for the first time in profusion. About four o'clock 1 
passed a low, isolated hill on the eastern bank, which the 
sailors called Djar en-nehhee, and near sunset, a long ridge on 
the right, two miles inland, broke the dead level of the plains 
of Korclofan. The sand-banks were covered with wild geese 
and ducks in myriads, and here and there we saw an enor- 
mous crocodile lounging on the edge of the water. The sun 
went down ; the short twilight faded, and I was canopied by a 
superb starlit heaven. Taurus, Orion, Sirius and the South- 
ern Cross sparkled in one long, unbroken galaxy of splendor. 
The breeze was mild and light, and the waves rippled with a 
pleasant sound against the prow. My sailors sat on the for- 
ward deck, singing doleful songs, to which the baying of dogs 
and the yells of hyenas made a fit accompaniment. The dis- 
tant shores of the river were lighted with the fires of the Mo- 
hammediyeh Arabs, and we heard the men shouting to each 
other occasionally. About nine o'clock we passed their prin- 



LOSS OF MY FLAG. 323 

cipal village, and approached the territories of the Hassani- 
yehs. 

The wind fell about ten o'clock, and the boat came to an- 
chor. I awoke an hour or two after midnight and found it 
blowing again fresh arid strong ; whereupon I roused the r'ai's 
and sailors, and made them hoist sail. We gained so much 
by this move, that by sunrise we had passed the village of 
Shekh Moussa, and were entering the territories of the Hassa- 
niyeh Arabs ; the last tribe which is subject to the Pasha of 
Soudan. Beyond them are the primitive Negro Kingdoms of 
Central Africa, in almost "the same condition now as they have 
been for thousands of years past. About sunrise the rais or- 
dered the sails to be furled, and the vessel put about. The 
men were rowing some time before I discovered the cause. 
Whilst attempting to hoist my flag, one of them let it fall into 
the water, and instead of jumping in after it, as I should have 
done had I seen it, suffered the vessel to go some distance be- 
fore he even announced the loss. We were then so far from 
the spot, that any attempt to recover it would have been use- 
less, and so the glorious stars and stripes whieh had floated 
thus far triumphantly into Africa, met the fate of most travel- 
lers in those regions. They lay imbedded in the mud of the 
White Nile, and I sailed away from the spot with a pang, as 
if a friend had been drowned there. The flag of one's country 
is never dearer to him than when it is his companion and pro- 
tector in foreign lands. 

During the whole forenoon we sailed at the rate of six or 
seven miles an hour, in the centre of the river, whose breadth 
varied from two to three miles. The shores no longer pre- 
sented the same dead level as on the first day. They were 



324 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

banks of sandy soil, ten or twelve feet in height, and covered 
with forests of the gum-bearing mimosa, under which grew 
thickets of a dense green shrub, mixed with cactus and euphor- 
bia. The gum is a tree from twenty to thirty feet in height, 
with a thick trunk and spreading branches, and no Italian oak 
or chestnut presents a greater variety of picturesque forms to 
the painter's eye. The foliage is thin, allowing the manifold 
articulations of the boughs and twigs to be seen through it. 
It was most abundant on the Kordofan side, and the greater 
proportion of the gum annually exported to Egypt comes from 
that country. The broad tide of the river and the wild luxu- 
riance of the continuous forests that girdled it, gave this part 
of its course an air of majesty, which recalled the Mississippi 
to my mind. There was not a single- feature that resembled 
Egypt. 

Towards noon we reached the more thickly populated dis- 
tricts of the Hassaniyeh. The town of Damas, on the east, 
and Tura, on the west, not very distant from each other, were 
the first I saw since leaving Khartoum. They were merely 
clusters of tokuls, or the straw huts of the natives, built in a 
circular form, with a conical roof of matting, the smoke escap- 
ing through an opening in the top. At both these places, as 
well as at other points along the river, the natives had ferries, 
and appeared to be busy in transporting men, camels and goods 
from one bank to the other. On account of the breadth of the 
river the passage was long, and the boatmen eased their labor 
by making a sail of their cotton mantles, which they fastened 
to two upright sticks. The shores were crowded with herds 
of sheep and goats, and I saw near Damas a large drove of 
camels which were waiting an opportunity to cross. The Has- 



SINGULAR CONJUGAL CUSTOM. 325 

saniyehs own no camels, and this was probably a caravan from 
Khartoum, bound for Kordofan. In some places the people 
brought donkeys laden with water-skins, which they filled from 
the river. I noticed, occasionally, a small patch of beans, but 
nothing that looked like a regular system of cultivation. The 
Hassaniyehs are yellow, with straight features, and resemble 
the Fellahs of Lower Egypt more than any other Central- Af- 
rican tribe. Those whom we saw at a distance from the vil- 
lages retreated with signs of fear as my vessel approached the 
shore. Dr. Peney, the Medical Inspector of Soudan, describ- 
ed to me, while in Khartoum, some singular customs of these 
Arabs. The rights of women, it appears, are recognized 
among them more thoroughly than among any. other savage 
people in the world. When a woman is married, her father 
states that one fourth of her life thenceforth is reserved for her 
own use, and the husband is obliged to respect this reserva- 
tion. Every fourth day she is released from the marriage vow, 
and if she loves some one else better than her husband, he can 
dwell in her tent that day, obliging the husband himself to re- 
tire. Their hospitality is such, moreover, that if a stranger 
visits one of their settlements they furnish him, for four days, 
with a tent and a wife. They should add a family of chil- 
dren, and then their hospitality would be complete. No re- 
proach whatever attaches to the woman, on account of this tem- 
porary connection. The Hassaniyeh, in other respects, are 
not more immoral than other tribes, and these customs appear 
to be connected with their religious faith. 

After passing Tura (the terminus of a short caravan route 
of four days to Obeid, the capital of Kordofan), a mountain 
range, some .distance from the river, appeared on the right 



326 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

bank. The peaks were broken and conical in form, and their 
pale-violet hue showed with fine effect behind the dark line of 
the gum forests. With every hour of our progress, the vege- 
tation grew more rank and luxuriant. On the eastern bank 
the gum gave place to the flowering mimosa, which rose in 
a dense rampart from the water's edge and filled the air with 
the fragrance of its blossoms. Myriads of wild geese, ducks, 
cranes, storks, herons and ibises sat on the narrow beaches of 
sand or circled in the air with hoarse clang and croaking. 
Among them I saw more than one specimen of that rare and 
curious water-bird, whose large, horny bill curves upward in- 
stead of downward, so that it appears to have been put on the 
wrong way. As he eats nothing but small fish, which he swal- 
lows with his head under water, this is not such a great incon- 
venience as one would suppose. The bars which occasionally 
made out into the current served as a resting-place for croco- 
diles, which now began to appear in companies of ten or fifteen, 
and the forests were filled with legions of apes, which leaped 
chattering down from the branches to look at. us. A whole 
family of them sat on the bank for some time, watching us, and 
when we frightened them away by our shouts, it was amusing 
to see a mother pick up her infant ape, and scamper off with it 
under her arm. The wild fowl were astonishingly tame, and 
many of them so fat that they seemed scarcely able to fly. 
Here and there, along the shore, large broods of the young 
were making their first essays in swimming. The boatmen 
took great delight in menacing the old birds with pieces of 
wood, in order to make them dive under water. There were 
some superb white cranes, with a rosy tinge along the edges 
of their wings, and I saw two more of the crested king-herons. 



A MID-AFRICAN LANDSCAPE. 327 

After passing the island of Tshebeshi, the river, which still 
retains its great breadth, is bordered by a swampy growth of 
reeds. It is filled with numerous low islands, covered with 
trees, mostly dead, and with waste, white branches which have 
drifted down during the inundation. In the forests along the 
shore many trees had also been killed by the high water of the 
previous summer. There are no habitations on this part of 
the river, but all is wild, and lonely, and magnificent. I had 
seen no sail since leaving Khartoum, and as the sun that even- 
ing threw his last red rays on the.mighty flood, I felt for the 
first time that I was alone, far in the savage heart of Africa. 
"We dashed along at a most exciting rate of speed, brushing the 
reeds of the low islands, or dipping into the gloom of the shad- 
ows thrown by the unpruned forests. The innumerable swarms 
of wild birds filled the air with their noise, as they flew to their 
coverts, or ranged themselves in compact files on the sand. 
Above all their din, I heard at intervals, from the unseen 
thickets inland, the prolonged snarling roar of some wild beast. 
It was too deep-toned and powerful for a leopard, and we all 
decided that it was a lion. As I was watching the snowy 
cranes and silvery herons that alighted on the boughs within 
pistol-shot, my men pointed out a huge hippopotamus, standing 
in the reeds, but a short distance from the vessel. He was be- 
tween five and six feet high, but his head, body and legs were 
of enormous bulk. He looked at us, opened his great jaws, 
gave his swine-like head a toss in the air, and plunged hastily 
into the water. At the same instant an immense crocodile 
(perhaps twenty feet in length) left his basking-place on the 
sand and took refuge in the river. Soon afterwards two hippo- 
potami rose in the centre of the stream, and, after snorting the 



328 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

water from their nostrils, entertained us with a peculiar grunt« 
ing sound, like the lowest rumbling note of a double-bass. The 
concert was continued by others, and resumed from time to time 
through the night. This was Central Africa as I had dream- 
ed it — a grand though savage picture, full of life and heat) and 
with a barbaric splendor even in the forms of Nature. 

As the new moon and the evening star went down together 
behind the mimosa forests on the western bank, we reached the 
island of Hassaniyeh, having sailed upward of one hundred 
and forty miles since the evening before. I had every pros- 
pect of reaching my destination, the island of Aba, in the 
archipelago of the Shillooks, before noon the next day, or in 
two days from Khartoum — a distance of more than two hun- 
dred and fifty miles ! Better sailing than this was never made 
on the Nile. Four more days of such wind would have taken me 
to the Bahr el-Grhazal, in lat. 9° — the land of lions, elephants, 
and giraffes, where the Nile becomes a sea of grass. It became 
more difficult for me to return, the further I advanced. At 
nine o'clock we passed the island of Hassaniyeh, and saw the 
fires of the Shillook negroes burning brightly on the western 
bank. The wind blew more briskly than ever, and I dashed 
onward in the starlight with the painful knowledge that I was 
fast approaching the point beyond which I dared not go. 






- 




MORNING. 329 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ADVENTURES AMONG THE SHILLOOK. NEGROES. 

Morning — Magnificence of the Island Scenery — Birds and Hippopotami — Flight of the 
Natives — The Island of Aba — Signs of Population — A Band of "Warriors — The Shekh 
and the Sultan — A Treaty of Peace — The Robe of Honor — Suspicions— "We walk to 
the Village — Appearance of the Shillooks — The Village — The Sultan gives Audience 
— 'Women and Children — Ornaments of the Natives — My "Watch — A Jar of Honey — 
Suspicion and Alarm — The Shillook and the 'Sultan's Black "Wife — Character of the 
Shillooks — The Land of the Lotus — Population of the Shillook Kingdom — The Turn- 
ing Point— A View from the Mast-Head. 

"We sailed nearly all night with a steady north-wind, which 
towards morning became so strong that the men were obliged 
to take in sail and let us scud under bare poles. When I rose, 
in the gray of early dawn, they were about hoisting the little 
stern-sheet, which alone sufficed to carry us along at the rate 
of four miles an hour. We had passed the frontier of Egyp- 
tian Soudan soon after sunset, and were then deep in the negro 
kingdom of the Shillooks. The scenery had changed consider- 
ably since the evening. The forests were taller and more 
dense, and the river more thickly studded with islands, the soil 
of which was entirely concealed by the luxuriant girdle of 
shrubs and water-plants, in which they lay imbedded. The 



330 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

qmbak, a species of aquatic shrub, with, leaves resembling the 
sensitive plant and winged, bean-like blossoms of a rich yellow 
hue, grew on the edge of the shore, with its roots in the water 
and its long arms floating on the surface. It formed impene- 
trable ramparts around the islands and shores, except where 
the hippopotamus and crocodile had trodden paths into the 
forests, or the lion and leopard had come down to the river's 
margin to drink. Behind this floating hem of foliage and blos- 
soms appeared other and larger shrubs, completely matted to- 
gether with climbing vines, which covered them like a mantle 
and hung from their branches dangling streamers of white and 
purple and yellow blossoms. They even stretched to the 
boughs of the large mimosa, or sont trees, which grew in the 
centre of the islands, thus binding all together in rounded 
jaasses. Some of the smaller islands resembled floating hills 
of vegetation, and their slopes and summits of impervious foli- 
age, rolling in the wind, appeared to keep time with the rock- 
ing of the waves that upheld them. The profusion of vegeta- 
ble life reminded me of the Chagres River. If not so rich 
and gorgeous, it was on a far grander scale. The river had 
still a breadth of a mile and a half, where his current was free, 
but where island crowded on island in a vast archipelago of 
leafy shores, he took a much wider sweep. The waves danced 
and glistened in the cool northern wind, as we glided around 
his majestic curves, and I stood on deck watching the wonder- 
ful panorama unfold on either side, with a feeling of exul- 
tation to which I gave free vent. In no other river have I 
seen landscapes of larger or more imposing character. 

All the rich animal world of this region was awake and 
stirring before the sun. The wild fowls left their roosts ; the 



THE ISLANDS OF THE SHILLOOKS. 331 

zikzaks flew twittering over the waves, calling up their mates, 
the sleepy crocodiles ; the herons stretched their wings against 
the wind ; the monkeys leaped and chattered in the woods, 
and at last whole herds of hippopotami, sporting near the shore, 
came up spouting water from their nostrils, in a manner pre- 
cisely similar to the grampus. I counted six together, soon 
after sunrise, near the end of an island. They floundered 
about in the shallows popping up their heads every few min- 
utes to look at us, and at last walked out through the reeds 
and stood upon the shore. Soon afterwards five more appear- 
ed on the other side of the river, and thenceforth we saw them 
almost constantly, and sometimes within fifty yards. I noticed 
one which must have been four feet in breadth across the ears, 
and with a head nearly five feet long. He opened his mouth 
wide enough to show, two round, blunt tusks, or rather grinders, 
one on each side. They exhibited a great deal of curiosity, 
and frequently turned about after we had passed, and followed 
for some time in our wake. 

Soon after sunrise the rais observed some Shillooks in the 
distance, who were sinking their canoes in the river, after 
which they hastily retreated into the woods. We ran along 
beside the embowering shores, till we reached the place. The 
canoes were carefully concealed and some pieces of drift-wood 
thrown over the spot, as if left there by the river. The rais 
climbed to the mast-head and called to the people, assuring 
them that there was no danger, but, though we peered sharply 
into the thickets, we could find no signs of any human being:- 
The river here turned to the south, disclosing other and rich- 
er groups of islands, stretching beyond one another far into the 
distance. Directly on our left was the northern point of tho 



332 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

island of Aba, our destination. As the island is six or eight 
miles in length, I determined to make the most of my bargain, 
and so told the rais that he must take me to its further end, 
and to the villages of the Shillooks, whom I had come to see. 
Abou-Hammed was small in body, but had a stout heart. The 
Consul and fat Abou-Balta had given him special instructions 
to keep me out of danger, yet he could not refuse my demands. 
We sailed two or three miles along the shore of Aba, looking 
into the depths of its ambak forests for traces of the Shillooks, 
who, according to the rais, had a village on the island. On 
our right extended a chain of smaller islands — bowery masses 
of leaves and blossoms — and beyond them the wild forests of 
the western bank. Glorious above description was that world 
of waves and foliage — of wood, water and sky. 

At last, on rounding one of the coves of Aba, we came 
upon a flock of sheep, feeding along the shore. A light thread 
of smoke arose firom among some dead, fallen trees, a few paces 
in the forest, but no person was to be seen. The boat was run 
to the shore, and we landed and examined the spot. The na- 
tives had evidently just left, for" the brands were burning, and 
we saw the prints of their long feet in the ashes. The rais and 
sailors walked on tiptoe through the woods, looking for the 
hidden inhabitants. The mimosas, which here grow to the 
height of fifty feet, met above our heads and made a roof 
against the sun. Some large gray apes, startled by our visit, 
leaped with wonderful dexterity from tree to tree. I found 
several abandoned fire-places during my walk, and near the 
shore saw many footprints in the soft soil. The forest was 
^uite clear of underwood, but the ground was cumbered with 
the trunks of dead trees. There were but few flowering plants 



WE ENCOUNTER THE SHILLOOKS. 333 

and I was too much interested in the search for the Shillooka 
to examine them. 

The rai's finally descried the huts of the village at a dis- 
tance, near the extremity of the island. "We returned to the 
vessel, and were about putting off in order to proceed thither, 
when a large body of men, armed with spears, appeared in the 
forest, coming towards us at a quick pace. The rai's, who had 
already had some intercourse with these people and knew some- 
thing of their habits, advanced alone to meet them. I could 
see, through the trees, that a consultation was held, and short- 
ly, though with some signs of doubt and hesitation, about a 
dozen of the savages advanced to within a short distance of 
the vessel, while the others sat down on the ground, still hold- 
ing the spears in their hands. The rai's now returned to the 
water's edge, and said that the Shillooks had come with the 
intention of fighting, but he had informed them that this was a 
visit from the Sultan's son, who came to see them as a friend, 
and would then return to his father's country. Thereupon 
they consented to speak with me, and I might venture to go 
on shore. I landed again, with Achmet, and walked up with 
the rai's to the spot where the men were seated. The shekh 
of the island, a tall, handsome man, rose to greet me, by touch- 
ing the palm of his right hand to mine and then raising it to 
his forehead. I made a like salutation, after which he sat 
down. The vizier (as he called himself), an old man exces- 
sively black in complexion, then advanced, and the other war- 
riors in succession, till all had saluted me. The conversation 
was carried on in the Arabic jargon of Soudan, which the shekh 
and some of his men spoke tolerably well, so that I could un- 
derstand the most of what was said*. " Why don't you bring 



334 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the Sultan's carpet that he may rest ? " said the shekh to one 
of my sailors. The carpet and pillows were immediately 
brought, and I stretched myself out in front of the shekh and 
vizier, who sat upon a fallen tree, while the others squatted 
upon the ground. The shekh at first took no part in the con- 
versation, hut sat looking at me steadily, from under his heavy 
eyebrows. Our negotiations were conducted in genuine diplo- 
matic style. Whenever His Majesty of the Shillooks had any 
thing to say, he mentioned it to'his vizier, who addressed Ach- 
met, my vizier, who communicated it to me, the Sultan. The 
spectators observed the most profound silence, and nothing 
could surpass the gravity and solemnity of the scene. 

In the mean time the other warriors had come up and taken 
their seats around us, each one greeting me before he sat down, 
with " ow-wow-wobba /" (probably a corruption of the Arabic 
" mar-liabbaV "how d'ye do?") The vizier, addressing me 
through Achmet, said : " Tell us what you want ; if you come 
to fight, we are ready for you." I assured the shekh through 
him that I came as a friend, and had no intention of molesting 
them, but he was not satisfied, and repeated three or four 
times, drawing a mark between us on the ground : "if you are 
really friends, we will be friends with you ; but if you are not, 
we are ready to fight you." Achmet at last swore by the Pro- 
phet Mohammed, and by the wisdom of Allah, that we had oome 
in peace ; that the Sultan wished to pay him a visit, and would 
then return home. At the request of the rai's we had come on 
shore unarmed, but it had not the anticipated effect. " Why 
have you no arms ? " said the shekh ; " are you afraid of us ? " 
I told him that it was in order to show that I had no hostile 
intentions, but the people seemed to consider it as mark of 



THE ROBE OF HONOR. 335 

either treachery or fear. I brought some tobacco with me, 
which I gave to the shekh, but he received it coldly, and said : 
" Where is the dress which the Sultan has brought for me ? " 
This reminded me that I had entirely neglected to provide 
myself in Khartoum with muslin and calico, for presents. I 
remedied the deficiency, however, by going on board and taking 
one of my shirts and a silk handkerchief, as well as some beads 
and ear-rings for the wives of the two dignitaries. Achmet 
added a shirt and a pair of Turkish drawers, and brought a 
fresh supply of tobacco for the warriors. The shekh took the 
presents with evident gratification, and then came the work of 
clothing him. He was entirely at a loss how to put on the 
garments, but Achmet and the rais unwound the cotton cloth 
from his loins, stuck his legs into the drawers, his arms into 
the shirt-sleeves, and tied the handkerchief about his head. 
Once clothed, he gave no more attention to his garments, but 
wore them with as much nonchalance as if he had never pos- 
sessed a scantier costume. The vizier, who had shown mani 
fest ill-humor at being passed by, was quieted by the present 
of a shirt, which was put upon his shoulders in like manner. 
He gave me his name as Adjeb-Secdoo (" He pleases his Mas- 
ter"), a most appropriate name for a vizier. The shekh's 
name, Abd-en-noor ("the Slave of Light"), was hardly so 
befitting, for he was remarkably dark. I was much amused at 
my servant Ali, who had shown great terror on the first ap- 
pearance of the savages. He had already become so familiar, 
that when the shekh did not seem to understand the use of 
the beads and ear-rings, Ali pinched his ears very significantly, 
and took hold of his neck to show how they must be worn. 
By this time coffee had been prepared and was brought to 



336 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

them, But they had been so accustomed to inhumanity and 
deception on the part of the Turks, that they still mistrusted 
us and no one would drink, for fear that it contained poison. 
To quiet them, therefore, I drank a cup first, after which they 
took it readily, "but many of them, who then tasted coffee for 
the first time, did not seem to relish it. A drove of sheep 
happening to pass by, the shekh ordered one of the rams to be 
caught and pixt on board the vessel, for the Sultan's dinner. 
The men soon began to demand tobacco, clothes, and various 
other things, and grew so importunate that Achmet became 
alarmed, and even the rais, who was a man of some courage, 
seemed a little uneasy. I thought it time to give a change to 
affairs, and therefore rose and told the shekh I was ready to 
visit his village. We had intended returning on board and 
sailing to the place, which was at the southern extremity of 
the island, about a mile distant, but reflecting that this might 
occasion mistrust, and that the best way of avoiding danger is 
to appear unconscious of it, I called Achmet and the rais to 
accompany me on foot. While these things were transpiring, 
a number of other Shillooks had arrived, so that there were 
now upwards of fifty. All were armed — the most of them 
with iron-pointed spears, some with clubs, and some with long 
poles, having knobs of hard wood on the end. They were all 
tall, strong, stately people, not more than two or three under 
six feet in height, while the most of them were three or four 
inches over that standard. Some had a piece of rough cotton 
cloth tied around the waist or thrown over the shoulders, but 
the most of them were entirely naked. Their figures were 
large and muscular, but not symmetrical, nor was there the 
least grace in their movements. Their faces resembled a cross 



APPEARANCE OF THE SHILLOOKS. 337 

between the Negro of Guinea and the North American In- 
dian, having the high cheek bones, the narrow forehead and 
pointed head of the latter, with the fiat nose and projecting 
lips of the former. Their teeth were so long as to appear like 
tusks, and in most of them one or two front teeth were want- 
ing, which gave their faces a wolfish expression. Their eyes 
were small and had an inflamed look, which might have been 
occasioned by the damp exhalations of the soil on which they 
slept. Every one wore an armlet above the elbow, either a 
segment of an elephant's tusk, or a thick ring of plaited hippo- 
potamus hide. The most of them had a string of glass beads 
around the neck, and the shekh wore a necklace of the large 
white variety, called " pigeon eggs " by the traders on the 
White Nile. They had no beards, and their hair was seared 
or plucked out on the forehead and temples, leaving only a 
circular crown of crisp wool on the top of the head. Some 
had rubbed their faces and heads with red ashes, which impart- 
ed a livid, ghastly effect to their black skins. 

The shekh marched ahead, in his white garments and flut- 
tering head-dress, followed by the warriors, each carrying his 
long spear erect in his hand. We walked in the midst of 
them, and I was so careful to avoid all appearance of fear that 
I never once looked behind, to see whether the vessel was fol- 
lowing us. A violent dispute arose among some of the men in 
front, and from their frequent glances towards us, it was evi- 
dent that we were in some way connected with the conversa- 
tion. I did not feel quite at ease till the matter was referred 
to the shekh, who decided it in a way that silenced the men, if 
it did not satisfy them. As we approached the village, good- 
humor was restored, and their demeanor towards us was 
15 



388 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

thenceforth more friendly. They looked at me with curiosity, 
but without ill-will, and I could see that my dress interested 
them much more than my person. Finally we reached the 
village, which contained about one hundred tokuls of straw, 
built in a circular form, with conical roofs. They were arrang- 
ed so as to inclose a space in the centre, which was evidently 
intended as a fold for their sheep, as it was further protected 
by a fence of thorns. G-uards were stationed at intervals of 
about twenty yards, along the side fronting the river, each 
leaning back against his spear, with one of his legs drawn up, 
so that the foot rested against the opposite knee. At the 
principal entrance of the village, opposite which I counted 
twenty-seven canoes drawn up against the shore, we made halt, 
and the shekh ordered a seat to be brought. An angareh, the 
frame of which was covered with a net-work of hippopotamus 
thongs, was placed in the shade of a majestic mimosa tree, and 
the shekh and I took our seats. Another angareb was brought 
and placed behind us, for our respective viziers. The warriors 
all laid aside their spears and sat on the ground, forming a 
semicircle in front of us. A swarm of naked boys, from eight 
to twelve years of age, crept dodging behind the trees till they 
reached a convenient place in the rear, where they watched mo 
curiously, but drew back in alarm whenever I turned my head. 
The village was entirely deserted of its inhabitants, every one 
having come to behold the strange Sultan. The females kept 
at a distance at first, but gradually a few were so far overcome 
by their curiosity that they approached near enough for me to 
observe them closely. They were nude, except a small piece 
of sheepskin around the loins, and in their forms were not very 
easy to distinguish from th) men, having flat, masculine breasts 



SCENE AT THE VILLAGE. 339 

and narrow nips. They were from five feet eight inches to six 
feet in height. The rai's informed me that the Shillooks fre- 
quently sell their women and children, and that a boy or girl 
can be bought for about twenty measures of dourra. 

After undergoing their inspection half an hour, I began to 
get tired of sitting in state, and had my pipe brought from the 
boat. I saw by an occasional sidelong glance that the shekh 
watched me, but I smoked carelessly until the tobacco was 
finished. Some of the men were already regaling themselves 
with that which I had given them. They had pipes with im- 
mense globular bowls of clay, short, thick stems of reed, and 
mouth-pieces made of a variety of wild gourd, with a long, 
pointed neck. A handful of tobacco was placed in the bowl 
and two or three coals laid upon it, after which the orifice was 
closed with clay. The vizier, Adjeb-Seedoo, who had some- 
thing of the Yankee in his angular features and the shrewd 
wrinkles about the corners of the eyes, chewed the tobacco and 
squirted out the saliva between his teeth in the true Down- 
East style. I bargained for his pipe at two piastres, and one 
of the ivory arm-rings at five, but as I had no small silver 
money (the only coin current among them), did not succeed in 
getting the former article. I obtained, however, two of the 
arm-rings of hippopotamus hide. While these things were go- 
ing on, the shekh who had been observing me closely, saw the 
chain of my watch, which he seized. I took out the watch 
and held it to his ear. He started back in surprise, and told 
the men what he had heard, imitating its sound in a most 
amusing manner. They all crowded around to listen, and 
from their looks and signs seemed to think the case contained 
some bird or insect. I therefore opened it, and showed them 



340 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the motion of the balance-wheel and of the hand on the smaller 
dial of the face. Their astonishment was now changed to awe, 
and they looked at it silently, without daring to touch it. 

I profited by this impression to make a move for starting, 
before their greed for presents should grow into a resolve to 
rob us by force. I had asked the shekh two or three times to 
have a cup of water brought for me, but he seemed to pay no 
attention to the request. Soon, however, one of the men 
brought a large earthen jar, stopped with clay, and placed it 
at my feet. Thereupon the shekh turned to me, saying : 
" There is plenty of water in the river, and here I give you 
honey to mix with it." The jar was taken on board, and con- 
tained, in fact, nearly a gallon of wild honey, which had a rich, 
aromatic taste, like the odor of the mimosa flowers. The trad- 
ing-vessels on the White Nile purchase this honey, but as the 
natives, in their hatred of the Turks, frequently mix with it 
the juice of poisonous plants, they are obliged to taste it them- 
selves before they can sell it. I did not require this proof at 
their hands, preferring to trust them unreservedly, at least in 
my demeanor. Trust always begets a kindred trust, and I 
am quite sure that my safety among those savages was owing 
to my having adopted this course of conduct. 

I went on board to get the money for the arm-rings, and 
after Achmet had paid the men, directed him and the rais to 
return. Several of the Shillooks followed, offering articles for 
sale, and the vizier, who had waded out, holding up his new 
shirt so that it might not be wet, climbed upon the gunwale 
of the boat and peered into the oabin. I changed my position 
so as to stand between him and the door, gave him two onions 
which he saw on deck and had an appetite for, and hurried 



THE SULTAN'S BLACK WIFE. 341 

him away. The shekh and all the warriors had come down to 
the shore, but without their spears, and were seated on the 
ground, holding a consultation. By this time, however, the 
rai's was at the helm, and the sailors had begun to shove the 
bow of my boat into the stream. I called out : " Shekh 
Abd-en-noor ! " in a familiar way, and waved my hand as a 
token of parting. He rose, returned the salute, made a ges^ 
ture to his men, and they all went slowly back to the village. 
As we were leaving, the sailors informed me that one of the 
Shillooks, who had come down to the boat while I was seated 
with the shekh on shore, took a fancy to the fat black slave 
who cooks for them, and expressed his determination to take 
her. They told him she was one of the Sultan's wives, and 
that as His Majesty was now the shekh's friend, he dare not 
touch her. " Oh," said the Shillook, " if she is the Sultan's 
wife, that is enough;" and he immediately returned to the 
shore. I forgave the impertinence of the sailors in passing off 
such a hideous creature as one of my wives, in consideration 
of the adroitness with which they avoided what might have 
been a serious difficulty. 

The Shillooks have not the appearance of men who are 
naturally malicious. The selfish impudence with wnich they 
demand presents, is common to all savage tribes. But the 
Turks and even the European merchants who take part in the 
annual trading expeditions up the river, have dealt with them 
in such a shameful manner that they are now mistrustful of all 
strangers, and hence it is unsafe to venture among them. I 
attribute the friendly character of my interview with them as 
much to good luck as to good management. The rai's after- 
wards informed me that if the shekh had not been satisfied 



342 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

with the dress I gave hirn, he would certainly have attempted 
to plunder the vessel. He stated that the Shillooks are in the 
habit of going down the river as far as the country of the Has- 
saniyehs, sinking their boats and concealing themselves in the 
woods in the day-time, while by night they venture into the 
villages and rob the people of their clourra, for which they 
have a great fondness. They cultivate nothing themselves, 
and their only employment is the chase of the elephant, hippo- 
potamus and other wild beasts. All the region east of the 
river abounds with herds of elephants and giraffes, but I was 
not fortunate enough to get sight of them. 

Here is the true land of the lotus, and the Shillooks, if not 
the lotojpliagoi of the Greeks, are, with the exception of the 
Chinese, the only modern eaters of the plant. I was too late 
to see it in blossom, and there were but few specimens of it 
among these islands ; but not far beyond Aba it appears in 
great profusion, and both the seeds and roots are eaten by the 
natives. Dr. Knoblecher, who ate it frequently during his 
voyage, informed me that the root resembles the potato in con- 
sistence and taste, with a strong flavor of celery. These 
islands are inhabited only by the hunters and fishers of the 
tribe, wno abandon them in summer, when they are complete- 
ly covered by the inundation. At lat. 12°, or about thirty 
miles south of Aba, both banks of the river are cultivated, and 
thence, for upwards of two hundred miles, the villages are 
crowded so close to each other all along the shores, that they 
almost form two continuous towns, fronting each other. This 
part of the White Nile is the most thickly populated region in 
Africa, and perhaps in the world, China alone excepted. The 
number of the Shillooks is estimated at between two and three 
millions, or equal to the population of all Egypt. 



THE TURNING POINT. 843 

As we weighed anchor, I found that the men had taken 
down both sails and shipped the oars for our return to Khar- 
toum. We had reached the southern point of the island, in 
about lat. 12° 20 / north, and the north-wind was still blowing 
strongly. The rounded tops of the mimosa forests bent south- 
ward as they tossed ; the flowery arms of the ambak-trees 
waved to the south, trailing against the current, and my heart 
sank within me at the thought of retracing my steps. We 
had sailed two hundred and fifty miles in forty-eight hours ; 
the gateway to the unknown South was open, and it seemed a 
treason against Fortune to turn my face towards the Mediter- 
ranean. "Achmet!" said I, "tell the men to set the trin- 
keet again. We will sail to the Bahr el-Grkazal." The Theban's 
face became ghastly at the bare idea. " Master !" he ex- 
claimed, " are you not satisfied with your good fortune ? We 
are now nearly at the end of the earth, and if we go further, it 
will be impossible to return." Rai's Abou-Hammed declared 
that he had kept his word, and that he should now return, as 
it had been agreed, before we left Khartoum. I knew there 
was certain danger in going further, and that I had no right to 
violate my agreement and peril others as well as myself; but 
there lay the great river, holding in his lap, to tempt me on, 
isles of brighter bloom and spreading out shores of yet richer 
foliage. I was in the centre of the Continent. Beyond me 
all was strange and unknown, and the Grulf of Guinea was less 
distant than the Mediterranean, which I left not three months 
before. Why not push on and attempt to grasp the Central 
African secret ? The fact that stronger, braver and bolder 
men had failed, was one lure the more. Happily for me, per- 
haps, my object on commencing the voyage had been rest and 



344 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

recreation, not exploration. Had I been provided with the 
necessary means and scientific appliances for making such an 
attempt useful, it would have been impossible to turn back at 
that point. 

I climbed to the mast-head and looked to the south, where 
the forest archipelago, divided by glittering reaches of water, 
wove its labyrinth in the distance. I thought I saw — but it 
may have been fancy — beyond the leafy crown of the farthest 
isles, the faint blue horizon of that sea of water and grass, 
where the palm again appears and the lotus fringes the shores. 
A few hours of the strong north-wind, now blowing in our 
faces, would have taken me there, but I gave myself up to 
Fate and a pipe, which latter immediately suggested to me 
that though I was leaving the gorgeous heart of Africa, I was 
going back to Civilization and Home. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE WHITE NILE. 345 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE WH I T E NILE. 

Explorations of tho "Whito Nile — Dr. Knoblecher's Voyage in 1849-E\) — The Lands 
of the Shillooks and Dinkas — Intercourse with the Natives — "Wild Elephants and 
Giraffes— The Sofcat Eiver— The Country of Marshes— The Gazelle Lake— The 
Nuehrs — Interview with the Chief of the Kyks — The Zhir Country — Land of the 
Baris — The Rapids Surmounted — Arrival at Logwek, in Lat. 43 10' North— Panora- 
ma from Mt. Logwek — Sources of the "Whito Nile — Character of tho Bari Nation — 
Return of the Expedition — Fascination of the Nile. 

Let me here pause a moment, at the turning-point of my jour- 
ney, and cast a glance up the grand and wonderful vista which 
the White Nile opened to my view. The exploration of this 
river within the last fifteen years constitutes the most interest- 
ing chapter in the annals of African Discovery. It has been 
ascended to lat. 4° north, eight degrees of latitude, or four 
hundred and eighty geographical miles — and at least eight 
hundred miles, following the course of the stream — beyond the 
island of Aba. Of the Europeans who at different times ac- 
companied the exploring fleets of Mohammed Ali, or the an- 
nual trading expeditions, three kept journals and made scien- 
tific observations, and two — D'Arnaud and Werne — have pub- 
lished accounts of the voyage. Werne's book, however, is 
15* 



846 JOTJRNET TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

taken up with peevish comments on the conduct of D'Arnaud 
and Sabatier, and the report of the former, as I learned from 
Dr. Knoblecher himself, is incorrect in many particulars. 
The most satisfactory account is that of Dr. Knoblecher, who 
ascended about fifty miles beyond the point reached by pre- 
vious expeditions. During my stay in Khartoum, I received 
from him full particulars of his adventures, and was allowed 
to inspect his journals and sketch-books. His reports are ex- 
ceedingly curious and interesting, and I herewith present a 
brief outline of them. 

Dr. Knoblecher was specially educated, in the Propaganda 
at Rome, as a missionary for Central Africa. After studying 
the Arabic language for a year in Syria, he proceeded to 
Khartoum, where a Catholic Mission had already been estab- 
lished. There, however, the Mission found its sphere of ope- 
rations circumscribed by the jealousy of the government, as all 
attempts to make proselytes of Mussulmen are forbidden, and 
the highest ambition of the slaves who are brought from the 
interior is to be considered faithful followers of the Prophet. 
Dr. Knoblecher was therefore directed to accompany the an- 
nual trading expedition up the White Nile, for the purpose of 
ascertaining the practicability of establishing a missionary sta- 
tion among some of the native negro tribes near the Equator. 
He experienced much difficulty at the outset, on account of the 
jealousy of the Egyptian traders, who find the company of a 
European a restraint upon their violent and lawless practices, 
but through the influence of the Pasha, who was at last 
brought to give his consent, the missionaries secured a place in 
the expedition, and on the 13th of November, 1849, set sail 
from Khartoum. There were seven vessels in the flotilla, and 



THE LAND OF THE LOTU3. 347 

that of Dr. Knoblecher, though the smallest, proved to be the 
best sailer and usually kept the lead. He had on board a 
faithful and experienced Nubian pilot, named Suleyman Abou- 
Zeid. 

After fourteen days' sailing, the expedition passed the 
islands of the Shillooks and reached that part of the river 
where the banks are covered with continuous villages. The 
number of these is estimated at seven thousand. It is worthy 
of notice that their circular tokuls of mud and reeds are pre- 
cisely similar in form and construction to those of the tribes 
on the Niger and Senegal Rivers, with whom the Shillooks 
have no communication, and from whom they differ in lan- 
guage, appearance and' character. While threading the mazes 
of the archipelago, a violent whirlwind passed over the river 
and completely dismasted one of the boats. Beyond the 
islands the river expands so that the marshy shores are barely 
visible in some places. The lotus grows abundantly in the 
shallows, and the appearance of the thousands of snowy blos- 
soms as they flash open at sunrise, is described as a scene of 
vegetable pomp and splendor, which can be witnessed in no 
other part of the world. The forests of sont trees which cover 
the islands give place to doum-palms and immense tamarinds, 
and beyond lat. 10°, in the land of the Dinkas, the beautiful 
dhelleb-palm is first seen. It has a tall, graceful trunk, thick 
in the middle, but tapering towards the top and bottom, and a 
rich crown of large, fan-like leaves. 

On the twenty-eighth of November the expedition succeeded, 
after some difficulty, in establishing an intercourse with the Din- 
kas and Shillooks, who inhabited the opposite banks of the river. 
The latter in consideration of some colored glass beads, fur« 



848 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

nished a number of oxen for provisions. Dr. Knoblecher de- 
scribed their running, when they drove the cattle together, as 
resembling that of the gazelle ; they leap high into the air, 
drawing up their long legs as they rise, and clear the ground 
at a most astonishing speed. The next day the vessels reach- 
ed a large town called Vav, where the people received them 
without the least appearance of fear, and brought quantities of 
elephants' tusks to trade for beads. Herds of wild elephants 
and giraffes were now frequently seen on the banks of the river, 
and the former sometimes threw up their trunks and spirted 
water into the air when they saw the vessels. Numbers of 
white herons were perched composedly upon their backs and 
heads. The giraffes, as they gazed with wonder at the fleet, 
lifted their heads quite above the tops of the mimosa trees. 
On the second of December, the expedition passed the mouth 
of the Sobat River, the only tributary stream which comes to 
the White Nile from the east. Its source is supposed to be in 
the country of the Gallas, south of the kingdom of Shoa. Its 
breadth, at its entrance into the Nile, is six hundred and fifty 
feet. Werne, who ascended it about, eighty miles, with D'Ar- 
naud's expedition, states that its shores are higher than those 
of the Nile, and that the surface of the country became more 
elevated as he ascended, whence he infers that the White Nile, 
as far as it has been explored, flows in a depressed basin of the 
table-land of Central Africa. 

From lat. 9° 2G 7 to 6° 5CK N. there is a complete change in 
the scenery. The magnificent forests disappear, and the shores 
become marshy and unhealthy, covered with tall grass, whose 
prickly stalks render landing difficult, and embarrass the navi- 
gation of the shallows. The air is heavy with noxious mias- 



THE GAZELLE LAKE THE KYKS. 349 

mas and filled with countless swarms of gnats and mosquitoes 
The water of the river is partially stagnant, and green with 
vegetable matter, occasioning serious disorders to those who 
drink it. Dr. Knoblecher clarified it by means of alum, and 
escaped with a sore mouth. In order to sleep, however, he 
was obliged to wear thick gloves and mufile up his face, almost 
to suffocation. The Balir el-Ghazal, or Gazelle Lake, lies in 
lat. 9° 16 ; N. It is thus named from the Gazelle River, which 
flows into it on the western side, and which has never yet been 
explored. Its depth is about nine feet, but the reeds and 
water-plants with which it is filled reach to the surface, and 
render the navigation difficult. Its shores are inhabited by 
the Nuehr negroes, a stupid, imbruted race, many of whom are 
frequently carried off by the traders and sold as slaves. For 
this reason it is now very difficult to procure elephants' teeth 
from them. 

After leaving the Gazelle Lake, the course of the White 
Nile becomes exceedingly tortuous, and its current sluggish. 
Innumerable estuaries, or blind channels, which lose themselves 
among the reeds, perplexed the pilots, and delayed the pro- 
gress of the expedition. The land of the Kyks succeeded to 
that of the Nuehrs, which terminated about the eighth parallel 
of latitude. The former are a race of herdsmen, who have 
great numbers of cattle and sheep. Dr. Knoblecher found 
them exceedingly shy, on account of the threats of one of 
their Icogiurs, or soothsayers, who had warned them against 
holding any intercourse with the traders. On the twenty-sec- 
ond of December they reached the village of Angwen, where 
the King of the Kyks resided. The monarch received them 
with great kindness, and paid distinguished homage to Padre 



350 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Angelo Vinco, Dr. Knoblecher's companion, whom, on account 
of his spectacles and gray heard, he took to he a magician. 
He begged the Padre to grant him four favors, viz : — abun- 
dance of children ; the death of the enemy who had slain his 
father ; victory in all his fights, and a cure for the wound in 
his head. The latter gift was easily bestowed, by means of a 
plaster, but he was not satisfied until an image of the Virgin 
had been hung around his neck. 

South of the Kyks dwell the Elliabs, who are less timid 
than the southern tribes, because they come less frequently in- 
to contact with the traders. In their country the White Nile 
divides into two branches, and here the expedition separated, 
each division taking a different channel. The water was so low 
that the vessels stuck fast in the mud, but were relieved by the 
friendly natives, who dragged them through the shallows by 
means of long tow-ropes. For this service they were paid in 
glass beads. The further the vessels went into regions where 
intercourse with the Egyptian traders is rare, and therefore 
fewer outrages are perpetrated, the more friendly, confiding 
<and unconcerned was the behavior of the natives. 

On the thirty-first of December the expedition reached the 
country of the Zhirs. The people came down to the water's 
■jdge to greet them, the women clapping their hands and sing- 
uig a song of welcome. On the second of January, 1850, Dr. 
Knoblecher saw in the south-east the granite mountain of 
Nierkanyi, which lies in the Bari country, in about the fifth 
degree of north latitude. It was the first elevation he had 
seen since leaving Djebel Defafangh, in the country of the 
Dinkas, in lat. 10° 35 ; . All the intervening space is a vast 
savannah, interspersed with reedy swamps of stagnant water. 



THE BARI COUNTRY. 351 

The Zhirs own numerous flocks and herds, and cultivate large 
fields of sesame and dourra. They are very superior to the 
Nuehrs and Kyks in stature, symmetry of form and their man- 
ners toward strangers. In all these tribes, the men go entire- 
ly naked, while the women wear a narrow girdle of sheepskin 
around the loins. Dr. Knoblecher, however, confirmed the 
statement of "Werne as to the modesty of their demeanor and 
the evident morality of their domestic life. 

After leaving the Zhirs the expedition entered the country 
of the Baris, and on the fourteenth of January reached the 
rapids of the White Nile, at the island of Tsanker, in 4° 49 ' N. 
This was the farthest point reached by all previous expeditions, 
as they found it impossible to advance further with their ves- 
sels. The Nubian pilot, Suleyman Abou-Zeid, determined to 
make the attempt, and on the following day, aided by a strong 
north-wind, stemmed the rapid and reached the broad, lake-like 
expanse of river above it. Continuing his voyage, Dr. Knoblech- 
er sailed sixteen miles further, to the Bari village of Tokiman. 
The country was exceedingly rich and beautiful, abounding in 
trees, and densely peopled. The current of the river was more 
rapid, its waters purer, and the air seemed to have entirely lost 
the depressing miasmatic exhalations of the regions further 
north. The inhabitants of Tokiman showed great astonish- 
ment at the sight of the vessels and their white occupants 
Nothing, however, affected them so much as the tones of a har- 
monica, played by Dr. Knoblecher. Many of the people shed 
tears of delight, and the chief offered the sovereignty of his 
tribe in exchange for the wonderful instrument. 

On the sixteenth, the expedition reached the village of 
Logwek, which takes its name from a solitary granite peak, 



352 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

about six hundred feet high, which stands on the left hank of 
the Nile. It is in lat. 4° 10 7 N., and this is the most southern 
point which has yet been reached on the White Nile. I)r. 
Knoblecher ascended the mountain, which commanded a view 
of almost the entire Bari country. Towards the south-west 
the river wound out of sight between the mountains Rego and 
Kidi, near which is the mountain of Kereg, containing rich 
iron mines which are worked by the natives. Towards the 
south, on the very verge of the horizon, rose a long range of 
hills, whose forms could not be observed with exactness, owing 
to the great distance. Beyond the Logwaya range, which ap- 
peared in the east, dwell the Berri tribes, whose language is 
distinct from the Baris, and who are neighbors of the Grallas — 
that warlike race, whose domain extends from Abyssinia to the 
wilds of Mozambique, along the great central plateau of Unia- 
mesi. The natives of Logwek knew nothing whatever of the 
country to the south. The farthest mountain-range was prob- 
ably under the parallel of lat. 3° N., so that the White Nile 
has now been traced nearly to the Equator. At Logwek, it 
was about six hundred and fifty feet wide, and from five to 
eight feet deep, at the time of Dr. Knoblecher's visit, which 
was during the dry season. Such an abundance of water 
allows us to estimate with tolerable certainty the distance to 
its unknown sources, which must undoubtedly lie beyond the 
Equator. 

The great snow mountain of Kilimandjaro, discovered in 
1850 by Br. Krapf, the German missionary, on his journey 
inland from Mombas, on the coast of Zanzibar, has been loca- 
ted by geographers in lat. 3° S. It is therefore most probable 
that the source of the White Nile will be found in the range 



THE SOURCE OF THE WHITE KILE. 353 

of mountains, of which Kilimandjaro is the crowning apex. 
The geographer Berghaus, in a long and labored article, en- 
deavors to prove that the Gazelle River is the true Nile, and 
makes it rise in the great lake N'Yassi, in lat. 13° S. Dr 
Knoblecher, however, who examined the Bahr el-Ghazal at its 
mouth, says it is an unimportant stream, with a scarcely per- 
ceptible current. He considers the White Nile as being, be- 
yond all question, the true river. He also informed me, that, 
while at Logwek, some of the natives spoke of people white 
like himself, who lived far towards the south. I do not be- 
lieve in the fable of a white civilized race in the interior of 
Africa, and consider this rather as referring to the Portuguese 
settlements on the coast of the Indian Ocean, reports of which 
would readily be carried inland, from one tribe to another. 
Dr. Knoblecher is of the opinion that no exploring expedition 
from Khartoum will be successful ; that the traveller must first 
stop in the Bari country long enough to gain some knowledge 
of its people, and then, with a company of the natives as his 
attendants, make that his starting point. 

The shortness of Dr. Knoblecher's stay among the Baris 
did not permit him to obtain much information concerning 
them. They appeared to be worshippers of trees, like the 
Dinkas and Shillooks, but to have a glimmering idea of the 
future existence of the soul. They are brave and fearless in 
their demeanor, yet cheerful, good-natured and affectionate 
towards each other. Werne frequently observed the men 
walking along the shore with their arms around each other's 
necks. They are even more colossal in their stature than the 
Shillooks, many of them reaching a height of seven feet. 
Their forms are well-knit, symmetrical, and indicate great 



354 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

strength and activity. In smelting and working up the iron 
ore of Mount Kereg they show a remarkable skill. Many of 
the spears in Dr. Knoblecher's possession are as elegantly 
formed and as admirably tempered as if they had come from 
the hands of a European blacksmith. They also have war- 
clubs of ebony, which are nearly as hard and heavy as iron. 
One end is of a sloping, oval form, and the other sharp, and 
they are said to throw them a distance of fifty or a hundred 
yards with such precision that the sharp point strikes first and 
the club passes through the body like a lance I have in my 
possession some of these clubs, which were presented to me by 
Dr. Knoblecher. 

On the seventeenth of January the expedition left Logwek 
on its return to Khartoum, the traders having procured all the 
ivory which the natives had collected since the previous year. 
The Missionaries were prevented from accomplishing their ob- 
ject by the jealousy of the traders, who persuaded the Bari 
chiefs that they were magicians, and that if they were allowed 
to remain, they would bewitch the country, prevent the rains 
from falling and destroy the crops of dourra. In consequence 
of these reports the chiefs and people, who had been on the 
most friendly terms with Dr. Knoblecher and Padre Angelo, 
suddenly became shy and suspicious, and refused to allow the 
latter to take up their residence among them. The design of 
the mission was thus frustrated, and the Vicar returned with 
the expedition to Khartoum. He designed leaving for the 
Bari country in November, 1852, but up to the present mo- 
ment* no account has been received of the fulfilment of his plans. 

The pictures which these recent explorations present to us, 

*July, 1854. 



THE FASCINATION OF THE NILE. 355 

add to the stately and sublime associations with which the 
Nile is invested, and that miraculous flood will lose nothing of 
his interest when the mystery which veils his origin shall he 
finally dispelled. Although in standing upon the threshold 
of his vast central realms, I felt that I had realized a portion 
of my dream, I could not turn away from the vision of those 
untrodden solitudes, crowned by the flashing snows of Kili- 
mandjaro, the monarch of African mountains, without a keen 
pang of regret. Since Columbus first looked upon San Sal- 
vador, the Earth has but one emotion of triumph left in her 
bestowal — and that she reserves for him tvho shall first drink 
from the fountains of the "White Nile, undw fchfl snow-fields 
of Kilimandjaro. 



356 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE HASSANIYEH ARABS. 

We leave the Islands of the Shillooks — Tropical Jungles — A "Whim and its Consequen- 
ces— Lair^ of Wild Beasts — Arrival among the Hassaniyehs — A Village — The Wo- 
man and the Sultan — A Dance of Salutation — My Arab Sailor — A Swarthy Cleopa- 
tra — Salutation of the Saint — Miraculous Fishing — Night View of a Hassaniyeh Vil- 
lage — Wad Shellayeh — A Shekh's Residence — An Ebony Cherub-r-The Cook At- 
tempts Suicide — Evening Landscape — The Natives and their Cattle — A Boyish 
Governor — We reach Khartoum at Midnight. 

After we parted from the Shillooks the men rowed lustily, 
and, taking to the western side of the river, soon put an island 
- between us and the village. It was about two o'clock when 
we left, and the wind fell sufficiently before night to allow 
them to make considerable progress. We swept along, under 
the lee of the islands, brushing the starry showers of yellow 
blossoms that trailed in the water, and frightening the ibises 
and herons from their coverts among the reeds. The hippo- 
potami snorted all around us, and we had always a convoy of 
them following in our wake. The sun sank, and a moon, four 
days old, lighted the solitude of the islands, but the men still 
rowed vigorously, until we had passed the spot where the Shil- 
looks buried their canoes in the morning. They then deemed 



A TROPICAL JUNGLE. 357 

it safe to come to anchor in the middle of the stream, though 
the watch-fires of the savages were still blazing brightly in the 
distance. During the night the wind blew violently, and the 
river was rough and agitated. We all went to sleep, therefore, 
feeling certain that no predatory canoes would venture to fol- 
low us. 

In the morning there was a strong head-wind, and the tem- 
perature was so cold that I was obliged to wear my thick ca- 
pote of camel's hair while I sat on deck, looking regretfully at 
the beautiful islands I was leaving behind me. Achmet heat- 
ed and strained the honey given me by the Shillooks, which 
yielded between three and four quarts of rich liquid. While 
the men made fast to the bank for breakfast, I went on shore 
to get a glimpse of the country behind the forests. Paths 
trodden by wild beasts led through the walls of tangled vines 
that elsewhere were impenetrable, and I crept along them, 
under the boughs of strange trees and through thickets of lux- 
uriant shrubs. At length I reached an open patch of grass 
four or five feet in height, and so dry and yellow that it snap- 
ped like glass under my feet. It was dotted with clumps of 
liigh shrubs, knotted all over with wild, flowering vines, which 
formed admirable lairs for the lions and leopards. There was 
a strong smell of lions about the place, and I deemed it pru- 
dent not to venture far, since the rank animal odor peculiar to 
that beast grew more marked the further I went. The jungle 
in which I stood covered a tongue of land inclosed between two 
coves of the river, and through the openings in the thickets I 
saw that it led to other open tracts further inland. The wind 
was blowing towards the river, and as I stood in the midst, 
contemplating the wild, lawless grouping of the different trees 



358 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and shrubs some imp of darkness whispered in my ear . 
" What a magnificent conflagration this would make ! and then, 
perhaps, you might have the satisfaction of burning out a brace 
of lions ! " Without more ado, I whipped out a box of match- 
es, and struck fire in one of the thickest tufts. 

The effect was instantaneous, and so was my repentance. 
There was a crack and a crash, like the explosion of powder, 
and a sheet of red flame leaped into the air. In a few seconds 
it had spread to a broad swath of fire, rolling rapidly before 
the wind, and leaving the earth behind it as bare as the palm 
of my hand. The rank grass roared and snapped as the terri- 
ble power I had so thoughtlessly awakened, licked it away ; 
and not the grass alone. It seized on the vines and tore them 
down, swung itself by them into the boughs of the trees, and 
found richer aliment in their gums and juices. It spread on 
both sides and against the wind, and soon the long spires of 
scarlet flame, twisting in the air, rose high and hot above the 
dome-like tops of the mimosa forests. Before we left the 
place, the volumes of smoke reached nearly to the other side 
of the Nile. As I heard its relentless feet trampling down 
the thickets, I tormented myself with pictures of the evil 
which I had perhaps originated. I fancied it spreading from 
day to day, lapping the woods in coils of flame and flinging 
their burning boughs from island to island, till of all the glory 
of vegetation which had filled me with such rapture, there was 
nothing but a few charred trunks standing in beds of ashes. 
I saw the natives with their flocks and herds flying before it, 
the wild beasts leaping into the flood for refuge from its red 
fangs, and all that glorious region given up to terror and deso- 
lation. As we moved slowly away, against the wind, I watch 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 359 

ed its progress with a troubled conscience and an anxious 
heart. Now it paused and I flattered myself that there was 
the end, hut the next moment the black clouds rolled up 
denser than ever. Thus it wavered for some time, but at last 
thank God ! it seemed to fade gradually away, and I gave my> 
self the hope that it had not extended beyond the jut of land 
whereon it was kindled. 

At noon we passed the locality marked on D'Arnaud's map 
as El-Ais, but there was no sign of habitation. The rai's said 
there had been a town some distance inland, but it is now de- 
serted. The river here makes a curve to the west, and our 
small stern-sail was bound to the foremast, in order to use the 
side-wind. My sailors were unremitting in their labors, and 
rowed, poled and tracked the whole day. I sat in the sun all 
the while, looking on the incomparable shores. We saw mul- 
titudes of gazelles along the water's edge, on both sides. 
They were in companies of forty or fifty, and so little shy, 
that they often allowed us to approach within fifty yards. 
Wild fowl were as abundant as ever, and I greatly regretted 
having brought no rifle and fowling-piece. When we reached 
the northern extremity of Hassaniyeh, at sunset, I went ashore 
on the eastern bank, hoping to find a gazelle. The thickets 
were almost impenetrable, and I made my way with difficulty 
into a more open space, where the trees grew in clumps and 
the lion-paths had broken a way between them. Each of these 
clumps was woven into a single mass with vines, forming cov- 
erts of deepest shade, wherein a beast might crouch unobserv- 
ed, even at mid-day. The ground was covered with dry bur- 
grass, whose heads pierced through my clothes. One of the 
sailors accompanied me with a club, but was in such deadly 



360 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

fear of lions that he obliged me to return to the shore. Cer- 
tainly, this is the paradise of wild beasts. Such convenient 
lairs they can find in no other part of the world, and the thou- 
sands of gazelles and antelopes that range through the wilder- 
ness furnish them with a choice bill of fare. The trees and 
vines were nearly all new to me. I noticed in particular, a 
succulent vine, resembling the cactus and cereus families, but 
with square, fluted joints. It grew so thickly as frequently to 
conceal entirely the tree that supported it, I also saw a 
shrub with leaves like the ivy, but a large, purple, bell-shaped 
flower, and another with delicate, fern-like leaves of a dark- 
green color, and white, fragrant blossoms. There was a 
greater variety in the vegetable world than I had yet seen. 
What must be the splendor of the land during the rainy sea- 
son ! I found a peculiar fascination in tracing the wild paths 
through the thickets. It was a labyrinth to which there was 
no end, and the sense of danger gave a spice to its richness 
and novelty. Occasionally, I saw large holes in the ground, 
which my attendant said were those of serpents. No gazelle 
was to be seen, and when I reached the shore again, the wild 
geese had left. The wind fell at sunset, and the sailors rowed 
cheerily down stream, singing the while a barbaric chorus, 
which they had learned from the slaves brought from Fazogl. 

The sun, next morning, showed us a very different land- 
scape from that of the previous two days. The river was 
broader, but the shores were clothed with a more scanty vege- 
tation, and the few islands in the stream were but beds of sand. 
When the men stopped for breakfast we were in the neighbor- 
hood of a village of Hassaniyehs, as I had previously conjec- 
tured, from the camels and donkeys grazing among the thorns. 



VISIT TO A HASSANIYEH VILLAGE. 361 

Leaving the sailors to kill one of our sheep, I took Achmet 
and the rais, and followed the paths inland through a wood of 
scattering mimosas. After a walk of ten minutes we came to 
the village, or rather encampment, since the dwellings were 
mere tents of sticks and reeds. They were harely large enough 
to cover the two or three angarebs, which served as a bed for 
the whole family. Although the sun was 'an hour high, not 
more than half the inhabitants were stirring. The others, 
men and women, thrust their heads from under their dirty cot- 
ton mantles and looked at us with astonishment not unmixed 
with fear. The women who had already risen sat on the 
ground kindling the fires, or spinning with a rude distaff the 
raw cotton which these people cultivate. We found two or 
three men, whom we saluted with the usual " Peace be with 
you ! " and the rais informed them that the Sultan's son, re- 
turning from a visit to the Shillooks, with whom he had made 
a treaty of peace, had come to see them. Thereupon one of 
them brought an angareb and set it in the shade for me, while 
another caught a she-goat that was browsing among the bushes, 
and soon returned with a gourd half full of warm milk, which 
he gave me. As sour milk is considered a great delicacy 
among these people, a gourd of it was also procured for me. 
The woman who brought it knelt and placed it at my feet, but 
as I could not drink it and did not wish to refuse their gift, I 
asked one of the men to take it to the boat. He hesitated, 
evidently afraid to trust himself with us, whereupon the wo- 
man said : "I am not afraid to go with the Sultan ; I will 
take it." As we started to return, the man, whose sense of 
bravery, and perhaps his jealousy also, was touched by this re- 
mark, came likewise and accompanied us to the river. When 
16 



#62 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

we reached the vessel I sent the milk on hoard for the sailors' 
use, and gave the woman two piastres in copper money and a 
handful of tobacco. She immediately put her hand to her 
mouth and uttered a piercing, prolonged cry, which the rais 
said was intended as an expression of great joy. After repeat- 
ing this two or three times she dropped on her knees, and be- 
fore I could divine her intention, kissed my red slipper. 

In a short time I received word that the women of the 
village would come to perform a dance of welcome and saluta- 
tion, if I would allow them. As the wind was blowing strong- 
ly against us and the sailors had not finished skinning the 
sheep, I had my carpet spread on the sand in the shade of a 
group of mimosas, and awaited their arrival. Presently we 
heard a sound of shrill singing and the clapping of hands in 
measured beat, and discerned the procession advancing slowly 
through the trees. They came two by two, nearly thirty in 
all, singing a shrill, piercing chorus, which sounded more like 
lamentation than greeting. When they had arrived in front 
of me, they ranged themselves into a semicircle with their 
faces towards me, and, still clapping their hands to mark the 
rhythm of the song, she who stood in the centre stepped forth, 
with her breast heaved almost to a level with her face, which 
was thrown back, and advanced with a slow, undulating motion 
till she had .reached the edge of my carpet. Then, with a 
quick jerk, she reversed the curve of her body, throwing her 
head forward and downward, so that the multitude of her long 
twists of black hair, shining with butter, brushed my cap. 
This was intended as a salutation and sign of welcome. I 
bowed my head at the same time, and she went back to her 
place in the ranks. After a pause the chorus was resumed and 



THE DANCE OF SALUTATION. 363 

another advanced, and so in succession, till all had saluted me, 
a ceremony which occupied an hour. They were nearly all 
young, between the ages of fourteen and twenty, and some 
were strikingly beautiful. They had the dark-olive Arab 
complexion, with regular features, teeth of pearly whiteness, 
and black, brilliant eyes. The coarse cotton robe thrown over 
one shoulder left free the arms, neck and breasts, which were 
exquisitely moulded. Their bare feet and ankles were as slen- 
der as those of the Venus of Cleomenes. Owing to the skirts 
worn by the American women I have no recollection of ever 
having seen an entire foot belonging to them, and therefore 
can make no comparison ; but I doubt if one in a thousand 
stands on so light and beautiful a pedestal as those wild Afri- 
can girls. There were two or three old women in the com- 
pany, but they contented themselves with singing and did not 
venture into the lists with the younger ones. 

Several of the men, who had followed in the rear of the 
women, came and sat near us, on the sand. They were all evi- 
dently delighted with the occasion, and encouraged the more 
timid of the dancers by their words. One of them was an old 
man, with a long gray moustache and beard, carrying in his 
hand a spear, pointed with iron. My rais and sailors were on 
the ground, and one of the latter, a splendid fellow, whose 
form was almost perfect in its manly strength, took his station 
among the women and acted as master of the ceremonies. He 
drew a line in the sand down the centre of the ring, and 
another aloDg the edge of my carpet, and she who did not 
dance down the line until the final toss of her head threw her 
hair over the Sultan's cap, was obliged to perform her part 
over again. My sailor clapped his hands, joined in the song, 



364 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and moved with such entire and absolute grace in the dance, 
that he almost drew away my attention from the women. He 
was of the Djaaleyn tribe, and therefore of pure Arabian 
blood. As the ceremony was prolonged, they accompanied the 
dance with a hard, guttural breathing, in time with the music, 
and some of the old women, in their anxiety to encourage the 
younger and more timid dancers, leaned forward with eager 
eyes, uttering short, quick screams at intervals. It was a 
most remarkable scene ; the figures and the dancers were un- 
like any thing I ever witnessed. For the first time, in fact — 
perhaps because I had hitherto seen few women unveiled — I 
found undoubted beauty in the Arab female countenance. 

The last dancer was the wife of the Shekh, who came to- 
wards the close, with two negro slaves behind her. She was a 
woman of twenty, and the most beautiful of the group. Mak- 
ing allowance for the difference in complexion, she had a strong 
resemblance to the Cleopatra of Guide Her eyes were large, 
black and lustrous ; her face the full, ripe oval of the South, 
with a broad, round forehead, perfect lips and a most queenly 
neck and chin. She wore a diadem of white beads, under 
which her thick hair — unfortunately plastered with butter — 
hung to her shoulders in at least fifty slender braids. She 
went through the monotonous movement of the dance with the 
stately ease of a swan gliding down a stream, and so delighted 
my sailors and the men who had come down from the village, 
that she was obliged to repeat her salutation several times. I 
bowed lower to her than to the others, but took care to keep 
her unctuous braids from touching my face. When all was 
concluded, I directed Achmet to distribute a few handfuls of 
copper money among them, whereupon they returned to the 



A SAINT MIRACULOUS FISHING. 365 

village, uttering sharp yells of joy as they went. After they 
had left, I asked the men whether what I had heard in Khar- 
toum, concerning the peculiar conjugal customs of the tribe, 
was true, and they replied that it was. 

As we were about leaving, one of the shekhs, or holy men 
of the tribe, came down to greet me. He was an old man in a 
blue cotton mantle, and had with him two attendants. After 
touching my hand twice and asking many times for my health, 
he commenced singing passages of the Koran, in a loud, reso- 
nant, and not unmusical tone, somewhat resembling the sunset 
cry of the muezzin from his minaret. The two others respond- 
ed, and thus this religious entertainment was kept up for some 
time. But the rais was at his post and the wind had fallen, 
so I acted my despotic character of Sultan, by leaving the holy 
man in the midst of his chanting and going on board. When 
we left he was still standing under the mimosas, singing of 
Mohammed, the Prophet of God. 

We made but little headway during the afternoon, al- 
though the men worked faithfully. Djebel Deyoos, whose 
loose cluster of peaks is seen for a great distance over the 
plains of Kordofan, still kept us company, and did not pass out 
of our horizon until the next evening. The men towed for 
several hours, and as the shore was flat and the river very 
shallow they were obliged to walk in the water. While Ach- 
met was preparing dinner, a fish about the size of a herring 
vaulted upon deck and fell at his feet. He immediately clap- 
ped it into the frying-pan and presented me with an acceptable 
dish. To his unbounded astonishment and my great satisfac- 
tion, the same thing happened three days in succession, at pre- 
cisely the same hour. " Wallah, master ! " he exclaimed : " it 



306 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

is wonderful! I never knew such a thing to happen in Egypt, 
and it must certainly be a sign of good fortune. If you were 
not a lucky man, the fish would never offer themselves for your 
dinner in this way." 

By night the men could make no headway against the wind, 
which continued unabated nearly all the next day. They 
worked hard, stimulated by the promise of an abundant supply 
of mareesa at the next Hassaniyeh village. In the afternoon 
we passed Tura, which I recognized by the herds of camels on 
shore and the ferry-boats passing back and forth across the 
broad stream. I walked an hour or two while the men were 
towing, but was obliged to keep to the shore, on account of the 
burr-grass which covered all the country inland. This part of 
the river is thickly settled by the Hassaniyehs, whose principal 
wealth appears to consist in their sheep, goats and camels. 
They complained very much of the Shillooks, who come down 
the river on predatory incursions, carry off their sheep and 
dourra, and frequently kill the children who tend the herds. 

By dint of unremitting exertions, we reached a small vil- 
lage which the rais called Wad Shellayeh, about two hours 
after sunset. The men carried me ashore through the shallows, 
and I went with them to the village to perform my promise 
regarding the mareesa. We extinguished the lantern for fear of 
alarming the inhabitants, and walked slowly through the wil- 
derness of thorns. The village lay half a mile inland, between 
two low hills of sand. The dwellings were mere tokuls, like 
those of the Shillooks, and made of the long grass of the Des- 
ert. Each house was surrounded with a fence of thorns. The 
inhabitants were sitting at the doors in the moonlight, calling 
out to each other and exchanging jokes, while herds of the 



WAD SHELLAYEH. 36? 

slender yellow dogs of Soudan barked on all sides. While 
the rai's and sailors were procuring their mareesa I entered 
one of the tokuls, which was superior to those I had already 
seen, inasmuch as it contained an inner chamber or tent, made 
of fine yellow grass, and serving as a canopy to the family an- 
gareb. The people had kindled a fire on the ground, and the 
dry mimosa branches were blazing in close proximity to the 
straw walls of their dwelling. They were greatly inferior to the 
Hassaniyehs of the first village, both in appearance and cour- 
tesy of manners. The mareesa, which the rails at last brought, 
was weak, insipid stuff, and I returned to the boat, leaving the 
men to drain the jars. 

In the morning we reached another large Hassaniyeh vil- 
lage, which was also called Wad Shellayeh. It was the only 
village on the river worthy of notice, as it had four vessels 
moored to the shore, and boasted a few mud houses in addition 
to its array of tokuls. Several of the latter were built in tent 
form and covered with a striped cloth made of camel's hair. I 
entered the residence of the shekh, who, however, was absent 
with his wife to attend the funeral of a relative. The tent 
was thirty feet long, with an arched top, and contained two 
inner chambers. The sides were ornamented with gourds, 
skins and other articles, grouped with some taste, and large 
quantities of the cowries, or small white shells, which are used 
as currency in some parts of Central Africa, were sewed upon 
the cloth cover, in the form of crosses and stars. I looked 
into the principal chamber, which inclosed a broad and hand- 
some angareb, made of plaited palm-leaves. The walls were 
entirely concealed by the articles hung upon them, and every 
thing exhibited a taste and neatness which is rare among the 



368 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. . 

Arab tribes. The tent was in charge of the shekh's niece, a 
handsome girl of about eighteen, and an old woman with three 
children, the youngest of which was suckled by a black slave. 
He was an ebony Cupid of a year old, rejoicing in the bunches 
of white shells that hung from his neck, wrists and ankles. 
He exhibited a curiosity to touch me, and I took him in my 
arms and addressed him in Christian nursery tongue. The 
sound of my voice, however, was more horrible than the color 
of my skin. He set up a yell and kicked out his little black, 
satin-skinned legs till I was obliged to hand him over to the 
slave nurse. 

From the bank on which the village is built, I could see 
beyond the trees of the opposite shore, a wide stretch of the 
plains of Kordofan — a level savanna of yellow grass, extending 
without a break to the horizon. During the afternoon, while 
the men were resting from their rowing, Bahr, the Dinka cook, 
got into a dispute with one of them, and finally worked herself 
into such a rage that she jumped overboard with the intention 
of drowning herself, and would have done so, had not one of 
the sailors plunged after her and hauled her ashore, in spite of 
her violent struggles and endeavors to thrust her head under 
water. When she found she could not indulge in this recrea- 
tion, she sat down on the ground, burst into a paroxysm of 
angry tears, and in a quarter of an hour went back to grind 
her dourra, in the best possible humor. Her name, Bahr, sig- 
nifies " the sea," but she was an Undine of the Black Sea, and 
the White Nile refused to receive her. 

We went gloriously down stream that evening, with a light 
west wind filling the little sail and the men at their oars, sing- 
ing shrill choruses in the Congolese and Djaaleyn dialects- 



BANKS OF THE WHITE NILE. 369 

The White Nile, which is here three miles broad, was as 
smooth as glass, and glimmered far and bright under the moon. 
The shores were still, in all their dead level expanse, and had 
it not been for the uneven line which their belts of thorn-trees 
drew along the horizon, I could have imagined that we were 
floating in mid-ocean. While the men halted for breakfast the 
next morning, I landed and walked ahead, hoping to shoot a 
wild duck with my pistol. Notwithstanding there were hun- 
dreds along the shore, I found it impossible to get within 
shooting distance, as they invariably made into the river on 
my approach. An attempt to gain something by running sud- 
denly towards them, terminated in my sticking fast in the 
mud and losing my red slippers. I then crept through the 
scattering wood of mimosas to get a chance at a pigeon, but 
some spirit of mistrust had taken possession of the birds, and 
as long as I had a shot left there were none within reach. 
When my two barrels were spent they sat on every side in the 
most familiar proximity. 

Notwithstanding there were very few villages on the river's 
bank, the country was thickly inhabited. The people prefer 
building their dwellings a mile inland, and going to the river 
for water. This custom probably originated in their fear of the 
Shillooks, which led them to place their dwellings in situations 
most easy of defence. At one of the fording-places I found a 
number of women and children filling the water-skins and lift- 
ing them upon the backs of donkeys. Many hundreds of the 
hump-backed cattle, peculiar to the country, were collected 
along the shore. They have straight backs behind the hump, 
(which is a projection above the shoulders, four to six inches 
high), clean flanks, large, powerful necks, and short, straight 
16* 



370 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

horns. They eyed me with an expression of great curiosity, 
and some of the bulls evidently deliberated whether they 
should attack me. The people in this region were Hassani- 
yehs, and the men resembled those of the first village I visit- 
ed. They were tall, with straight features and a feminine ex- 
pression of countenance, which was probably caused by their 
wearing their hair parted in the middle, plaited into long braids 
and fastened at the back of the head. 

About noon we came in sight of Djebel Tinneh, which 
stands over against the villag? of Shekh Moussa, and serves as 
a landmark to the place. At sunset we saw the boat of Res- 
chid Kashif, the Governor of the tributary territories of the 
White Nile, anchored near the western bank. Two of my 
sailors had previously been employed by him, and as they had 
not received all their wages, they asked permission to cross the 
river and apply for the money. This Rescind Kashif was a 
boy of twelve or thirteen years of age, son of the former Gov- 
ernor, Suleyman Kashif, who was so much esteemed by the 
tribes on the river that after his death the Pasha invested his 
young child with the office. The latter was also quite popular 
with the natives, who attributed to him a sagacity marvellous 
for his years. He paid the men the money due them, sent his 
compliments to me, and inquired why I did not visit him. It 
was dusk by this time, and I did not wish to delay the boat ; 
besides, as I was a stranger and a Sultan, courtesy required 
that he should pay the first visit. 

We made the remainder of the voyage without further in- 
cident than that of slaughtering one of our sheep, near Djebel 
Aiillee. The wind was so light that our progress down the 
stream was rapid, and at sunset on Friday, January thirtieth, 



KHARTOUM AT MIDNIGHT. 371 

I recognized the spot where Dr. Keitz took leave of rue, on the 
upward voyage. The evening on the broad river was glorious ; 
the half-moon, being just overhead, was unseen, yet filled the 
air with light, and my natal planet burned white and clear in 
the west. At ten o'clock we reached the island of Onidurman, 
and wheeled into the Blue Nile. The camp-fires of Kordofan 
merchants were gleaming on the western bank. The barking 
of the dogs in Khartoum and the creaking wheels of the sakias 
were welcome sounds to our ears, as we slowly glided past the 
gardens. Ere long, the minaret of the city glimmered faintly 
in the moonlight and we recognized the buildings of the Catho- 
lic Mission. " God is great ! " said Achniet, devoutly ; 
" since we have been so near the end of the world, Khartoum 
appears to me as beautiful as Cairo." It was nearly midnight 
when we came to anchor, having made a voyage of about five 
hundred miles in nine clays. My friends were all abed, and I 
lay down for the night in the little cabin of my boat, exclaim- 
ing, like Achmet : " God is great ! " 



372 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL, AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

INCIDENTS OF LIFE IN KHARTOUM. 

The Departure of Abd-el Kader Bej- — An Illuminated Picture— Tbe Breakfast on tlia 
Island — Horsemanship— The Pasha's Stories — Departure of Lattif Effendi's Expedi- 
tion — A Night on the Sand — Abou-Sin, and his Shukoree Warriors — Change in the 
Climate — Intense Heat and its Effects — Preparations for Returning— A Money 
Transaction — Farewell Visits — A Dinner with Royal Guests— Jolly King Dyaab — 
A Shillook Dance — Reconciliation— Taking Leave of my Pets. 

t arose at sunrise, and leaving Achmet to have my bnggage 
removed, walked through the town to my head-quarters at the 
Consular residence. I found Dr. Reitz's horses saddled in 
the court, and himself walking in the garden. He was greatly 
surprised to see mc, not having expected me for another week. 
After the first greetings were over, he informed me that Abd- 
el Kader Bey, the Governor of Kordofan, was about leaving 
for Obeid, and his friends intended to accompany him as far 
as the island of Moussa Bey, in the White Nile. During my 
absence, Mohammed Kheyr had presented Dr. Reitz with a 
fine Dongolese horse, which he offered to me, that I might par- 
ticipate in the festivities. While I was at the Catholic Mis- 
sion, relating my adventures to Dr. Knoblecher, a messenger 
came to announce that Abd-el Kader's boat had left, and that 



AN ILLUMINATED PICTURE. 373 

he, with the other chiefs of Khartoum, were ready to set out on 
horseback for the White Nile. We rode at once to the house 
of Moussa Bey, who had quite recovered from his illness. 
The company was already mounted in the square before the 
house, and only awaited our arrival. We dashed through the 
lanes of the slave quarter, raising such a cloud of dust that 
little except red caps and horses' tails was visible, until we 
came out upon the open plain, where our cavalcade made a 
showy and picturesque appearance. 

The company consisted of Abd-el Kader Bey, Moussa Bey, 
Musakar Bey, Ali Bey Khasib, Abou-Sin and Owd-el Kerim, 
the Shukoree chiefs, Ali Effendi, Mohammed Kheyr, Br. Reitz, 
Dr. Peney and myself, besides a number of inferior officers 
and at least fifty attendants : in short, everybody of conse- 
quence in Khartoum except the Pasha, who was represented 
by one of his Secretaries. The Beys were mounted on fine 
Arabian stallions, Br. Peney on a tall dromedary, and the 
Arab chiefs on mules and donkeys, while the grooms and pipe- 
bearers ran behind on foot. I shall long remember the bril- 
liant picture of that morning. The sky was clear and hot, and 
the palms rustled their shining leaves in a light wind. The 
fields of beans lay spread out between us and the river, their 
purple blossoms rolling in long drifts and flakes of color, and 
warm, voluptuous perfume. The red caps, the green and scar- 
let housings of the horses, the rich blue, brown, purple and 
violet dresses of the Beys, and the snowy robes of the Arabs, 
with their crimson borders thrown over the shoulder, projected 
against the tawny hue of the distant plains, and the warm blue 
of the sky, formed a feast of color which, in its entire richness 
and harmony, so charmed my eye that the sight of it became a 



374 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

luxury to the sense, as palpable as that of an exquisite flavor 
to the palate. Away we went at full gallop, the glittering 
array of colors dancing and interchanging to the rapid music, 
as our horses' hoofs tore the bean- vines and flung their trailing 
blossoms into the air, until we reached the bank of the White 
Nile, where the Bey's vessel was just coming to land. Here 
the Arab shekhs and the greater part of the inferior officers 
embraced Abd-el Kader and returned to Khartoum. 

The rest of us crossed to the island of Moussa Bey and 
walked over the thick green turf to a large mimosa tree, of 
the variety called ''araz, where the carpets were spread on the 
ground for us and the slaves were ready with our pipes. We 
lay there two or three hours, in the pleasant shade, talking, 
smoking, and lazily watching the motions of the attendants, 
who were scattered all over the island. An Albanian in a 
scarlet dress shot a wild goose, and Dr. Beitz tried to bring down 
an ibis, but failed. Finally the showrmeh — an entire sheep, 
stuffed with rice — appeared, garnished with bread, onions, 
radishes and grapes. We bared our right arms and buried our 
hands in the smoking flesh with such good will, that in half an 
hour the dish contained nothing but a beautiful skeleton. 
Abd-el Kader Bey honored me by tearing off a few choice mor- 
sels with his own fingers and presenting them to me. A bowl 
of rice cooked in milk and sweetened, completed the repast. 
At noon we went on board the sandal, and after being ship- 
ped to the other side, took leave of Abd-el Kader with an em- 
brace and " God grant you a prosperous journey ! " — to which 
ae replied : " G-od grant it ! " He sailed off, up the White 
Nile, for Tura, with a fine breeze, and we turned homewards. 
The wind which blew across the plain in our faces, was as hot 



the pasha's stories. 3*75 

and dry as the blast of a furnace, and my head reeled under 
the terrible intensity of Ike sunshine. The Beys took every 
opportunity of displaying their horsemanship, dashing over the 
bean-fields in wild zigzags, reining up in mid-career, throw- 
ing their crooked canes into the air after the manner of a 
jereed, and describing circles and ellipses at full gallop. The 
finest of all was my handsome Albanian friend, Musakar Bey. 
I called upon the Pasha the same afternoon, to give him 
an account of my voyage up the White Nile, and was obliged 
to remain and dine with him. He was very much interested 
in my adventures with the Shillooks, but gave me to under- 
stand that the negroes had great fear of his power, and that if 
they had not known I was under his protection they would cer- 
tainly have killed me. When I spoke of the giant stature of 
the Shillooks he confirmed what I had already heard, that the 
Kyks and Baris are full seven feet in height. He also stated 
that his predecessor, Achmet Pasha Menekleh, had captured 
in the regions beyond Pazogl thirty blacks, who were nine feet 
high and terrible to behold. They were brought to Khartoum 
in chains, he said, but refused to eat, howled like wild beasts, 
and died in paroxysms of savage fury. When I remembered 
that the Pasha had already told me that there was a subterra- 
neous passage from Alexandria to the Fyoom (a distance of 
two hundred miles), made by Alexander the Great, and that 
the Sultan at Constantinople had an ape which grew to be 
twenty feet in height, I received this last communication with 
a grain of allowance. He fully believed in the existence of 
the N'yam-N'yams (a horribly suggestive name), or canni- 
bals, who, I have no doubt, are a fabulous race. Br. Barth 
lieard of them in Adamowa, south of Lake Tsad, and Dr 



3*76 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Knoblecher in the Bari country, but no one has ever yet seen 
them. 

The expedition of Lattif Effendi had met with many de- 
lays, but on Monday, the second of February, every thing was 
ready for its departure. It consisted of two large nehlcers, or 
trading-vessels, each armed with a cannon, and carrying six 
soldiers in addition to the crew. It was also provided with 
interpreters, who spoke the languages of the different tribes. 
Fat Abou-Balta, who was the owner of one of the vessels, Dr. 
Peney, Dr. Reitz and myself, made up a party to accompany 
Lattif Effendi the first stage of his voyage. We took the same 
little sandal in which I had sailed, and pushed away from 
Khartoum at sunset, followed by the nekkers. The relatives 
of the sailors were crowded on the bank to bid them good-bye, 
and as the vessels weighed anchor, the women set up the shrill 
" lu-lu-lu-lu-lu" which they use to express all emotions, from 
rapture down to despair. We had a light, but favoring wind, 
and at nine o'clock reached a long, sandy beach about five 
miles above the mouth of the White Nile, where we came to a 
halt. The vessels were moored to the shore, fires kindled, 
pipes lighted and coffee made, and we gathered into groups on 
the sand, in the light of the full moon. At midnight the cus- 
tomary sheep made its appearance, accompanied by two bottles 
of claret, whereat Abou-Balta affected to be scandalized, so 
long as any Moslem attendants were in the neighborhood. 
When the coast was clear, he sprawled out like another Fal- 
staff, his jolly face beaming in the moonlight, and took a sly 
taste of the forbidden beverage, which he liked so well that he 
no longer resented the wicked nickname of u gamoos el-bahr" 
(hippopotamus), which we bestowed upon him. We tried to 



ABOU-SIN, THE SHUKOREE CHIEF. 377 

sleep a little, but although the sand was soft, the night air was 
chilly, and I believe nobody succeeded but Abou-Balta, whose 
enormous belly shook with the force of his snoring, as he lay 
stretched out on his back. By three in the morning every- 
body was tired ; the fires had burned out, the meats of the 
banquet had grown cold, and the wind blew more freshly from 
the north. Lattif Effendi called his sailors on board and we 
took leave of him. The two nekkers spread their huge wings 
and sailed off in the moonlight for the land of the Baris, while 
we made our slow way back to Khartoum, where we arrived 
at daybreak. 

During my absence there had been three distinguished ar- 
rivals — Abou-Sin, the great shekh of the Shukorees (the father 
of Owd-el Kerim), Melek Dyaab, the king of Bar El-Makass. 
and Ali, shekh of the Ababdehs — all of whom .had been sum- 
moned by the Pasha, for the purpose of consulting with them 
on the condition of their territories. Abou-Sin was one of the 
stateliest and most dignified personages I had ever seen. He 
was about seventy-five years of age, six feet six inches in 
height, straight as a lance, with a keen, fiery eye, and a gray 
beard which flowed to his waist. Dr. Peney, who had visited 
the old shekh in Takka, informed me that he could bring into 
the field four thousand warriors, each mounted on his own 
dromedary. The Shukorees wear shirts of chain-mail and 
helmets with chain-pieces falling on each side of the face, like 
their Saracen ancestors. Their weapons are still the sabre and 
lance, with which they have maintained their independence 
against all enemies, except the cannon of Mohammed Ali. 
Dr. Keitz took me to visit the Shekh, who was living in an 
humble mud building, not far from the Pasha's palace. "We 



378 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

found him giving audience to a number of inferior shekks, who 
were seated upon the earthen floor, below his divan. His son, 
Owd-el Kerim, was among them. The Consul took his seat 
at the shekh's side, and I did the same, but, although nothing 
was said, I saw that those present mentally resented our pre- 
sumption, and felt that I had been guilty of a breach of deco- 
rum. The object of our visit was to invite the shekh to dine 
with us. and he graciously complied. Owd-el Kerim was in- 
cluded in the invitation, but he excused himself on the ground 
that he did not dare to eat at the same table with his father. 
I was delighted with this trait, which recalled the patriarchal 
days of the Old Testament, and justified the claim of the 
Arabs to the blood of Abraham. 

After my return the weather had suddenly changed, and 
every thing denoted the approach of the hot and sickly season. 
The thermometer stood at 105° in the shade, at noon, and 
there was an intensely hot wind from the south. On account 
of the languor and depression consequent upon such a heat, it 
required an extraordinary effort to make the necessary entries 
in my journal. I barely succeeded in moving about sufficient- 
ly to shake off the feverish humors which in that climate so 
rapidly collect in the system. I always placed a cool earthen 
jug of water at my bedside, and when I awoke in the middle 
of the night with a heavy head and parched throat, would take 
a full draught, which immediately threw me into a profuse 
sweat, after which I slept soundly and healthily until morning. 
He who lives in Khartoum in the hot season must either sweat 
or die. M. Drovetti, of Alexandria (son of the French Consul 
Drovetti, with whom Belzoni had so many quarrels), arrived 
about this time and was immediately prostrated with fever. 



CAMELS AND BILLS OF EXCHANGE. 379 

Many of the Franks and Egyptians were also affected, and 
Achmet, who felt plethoric symptoms, must needs go to a bar- 
ber and be bled in the head. He besought me to return to 
Egypt, and as I had already accomplished much more than I 
anticipated, I began at once to prepare for the homeward 
journey. 

The route which I fixed upon was that across the Be- 
yooda Desert to Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia^ 
thence to Dongola, and through the Nubian kingdoms to the 
Second Cataract of the Nile, at Wadi Haifa. The first part 
of the journey, through the countries of the Kababish and the 
Howoweet, was considered rather dangerous, and as a precau- 
tionary measure I engaged three of the former tribe, aj guide 
and camel-drivers. I purchased two large Shukoree dromeda- 
ries for myself and Achmet, at three hundred and two hundred 
and fifty piastres respectively, and hired three others from the 
Kababish, at fifty piastres for the journey to Eddabe, on the 
Dongolese frontier, by way of Napata. The contract was for- 
mally made in the presence of the shekh of Khartoum and Dr. 
Reitz, both of whom threatened the Arabs with destruction in 
case they should not convey me safely through the Desert. 
The Consul also did me good service in the negotiation of my 
draft on Fathalla Musallee, a Coptic merchant, who demanded 
twenty per cent, for the exchange. This, as my funds were 
getting low, would have been a serious loss, but by some arith- 
metical legerdemain, which I could not understand, the Consul 
so bewildered poor Fathalla's brain, that he was finally made 
to believe that a discount of five per cent, would somehow pro- 
fit him more in the end than one of twenty per cent. Fathalla 
paid the money with a melancholy confusion of ideas, and I 



380 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

doubt whether he has to this day discovered in what way he 
increased his profits by the operation. 

My provision-chests were replenished with coffee, sugar, 
rice, dates and mishmish (dried apricots), from the bazaar, 
and Achmet worked so cheerily with the prospect of leaving 
Soudan, that every thing was in readiness at a day's notice. 
Rather than wait until the following Monday, for luck's sake, 
I fixed upon Thursday, the fifth of February, for our depar- 
ture. Many of the subordinate Egyptian officers prepared let- 
ters to their families, which they intrusted to Achmet's care, 
and poor old Rufaa Bey, more than ever disgusted with his 
exile, charged me with a letter to his wife and another to Mr. 
Murray ,. through whoso aid he hoped to get permission to re- 
turn to Egypt. I paid a farewell visit to the Pasha, who re- 
ceived me with great courtesy, informing me (what I already 
knew), that he was about to be superseded by Rustum Pasha, 
who, he predicted, would not find the government of Soudan 
an easy one. 

I was sorry to part with Vicar Knoblecher and his breth- 
ren, Those self-sacrificing men have willingly devoted them- 
selvBS to a life — if life it can be called, which is little better 
than death — in the remote heart of Africa, for the sake of in- 
troducing a purer religion among its pagan inhabitants, and I 
trust they will be spared to see their benevolent plans realized. 
They are men of the purest character and animated by the best 
desires. Aboona Suleyman, as Dr. Knoblecher is called, is 
already widely known and esteemed throughout Soudan, and 
although he can do but little at present in the way of religious 
teaching, he has instituted a school for the children of the 
Copts, which may in time reform the (so-called) Christian so 



> ROYAL GUESTS. 381 

ciety of Khartoum. If he should succeed iu establishing a 
mission in the country of the Baris, the result will be not less 
important to Science than to Christianity, and the experiment 
is one which should interest the world. 

On the evening before my departure the shekhs Abou-Sin, 
Ali, the Ababdek, and Melek Dyaab came to dine with Dr. 
Reitz. Abou-Sin was grave and stately as ever, and I never 
looked at him without thinking of his four thousand mailed 
warriors on their dromedaries, sweeping over the plains of 
Takka. Shekh Ali was of medium size, with a kind, amiable 
face, and a touch of native refinement in his manner. King 
Dyaab, however, who wore a capacious white turban and a 
robe of dark-blue cloth, was the " merry monarch" of Central 
Africa. His large eyes twinkled with good humor and his 
round face beamed with the radiance of a satisfied spirit. He 
brought a black Dongolese horse as a present for Dr. Reitz, 
and requested me to put him through his paces, on the plain 
before the house, as it would have been contrary to African 
etiquette for the Doctor himself to test the character of the 
gift. I complied, but the saddle was adapted only for the 
short legs of the fat king, and after running a circular course 
with my knees drawn up nearly to my chin, the resemblance 
of the scene to the monkey-riding of the circus struck me so 
forcibly, that I jumped off and refused to mount again, greatly 
to the monarch's disappointment. 

Shekhs Abou-Sin and Ali took their departure shortly 
after the disposal of the roast sheep and salad which constitut- 
ed the dinner, but King Dyaab and Dr. Peney remained until 
a late hour, smoking a parting pipe with me, and partaking of 
a mixture of claret, lemons, pomegranate juice and spices, 



382 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. » 

which the Consul compounded into a sherbet of the most deli- 
cious flavor. King Dyaab drank my health with a profusion 
of good wishes, begging me to remain another week and ac- 
company his caravan. His palace in Dar El-Mahass, he said, 
was entirely at my disposal and I must remain several weeks 
with him. But there is nothing so unpleasant to me as to 
postpone a journey after all the preparations are made, and I 
was reluctantly obliged to decline his invitation. I take plea- 
sure, however, in testifying to the King's good qualities, which 
fully entitle him to the throne of Dar El Mahass, and were I 
installed in his capital of Kuke, as court-poet, I should cer- 
tainly write a national ballad for the Mahassees, commencing 
in this wise : 

" El Melak Dyaab is a jolly old King, 
And a jolly old King is he," etc. 

After the Melek had bestowed a parting embrace by throw- 
ing his arms around my waist and dropping his round head on 
my shoulder like a sixty-eight pound shot, he was sent home 
in state on the back of Sultan, the Dar-Fur stallion. The 
moonlight was so beautiful that the Consul and I accompanied 
Dr. Peney to his residence. The latter suggested another 
pipe in the open air of his court-yard, and awoke his Shillook 
slaves, who were lying asleep near the house, to perform a 
dance for our amusement. There were three — two males and 
a female — and their midnight dance was the most uncouth and 
barbaric thing I saw in Khartoum. They brandished their 
clubs, leaped into the air, alighting sometimes on one foot and 
sometimes on both, and accompanied their motions with a 
series of short, quick howls, not unlike the laughter of a hye- 



TAKING LEAVE OF MY PETS. 883 

na. After the dance, Dr. Eeitz effected a reconciliation be- 
tween one of the men and the woman, who had been married, 
but were about to separate. They knelt before him, side by 
side, and recounted their complaints of each other, which were 
sufficiently ludicrous, but a present of three piastres (fifteen 
cents !), purchased forgetfulness of the past and renewed vows 
for the future. 

I felt a shadow of regret when I reflected that it was my 
last night in Khartoum. After we walked home I roused the 
old lioness in her corner, gave her a farewell hug and sat down 
on her passive back until she stretched out her paws and went 
to sleep again. I then visited the leopard in the garden, made 
him jump upon my shoulders and play his antics over once 
more. The hyenas danced and laughed fiendishly, as usual 
when they saw me, but the tall Kordofan antelope came up 
softly and rubbed his nose against my leg, asking for the 
dourra which I was accustomed to give him. I gave him, 
and the gazelles, and the leopard, each an affectionate kiss, but 
poked the surly hyenas until they howled, on my way to bed. 



384 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTEE XXX. 

THE COMMERCE OF SOUDAN. 

The Commerce of Soudan — Avenues of Trade — The Merchants — Character of the Im- 
ports — Speculation — The Gum Trade of Kordofan— The Ivory Trade — Abuses of tha 
Government— The Traffic in Slaves— Prices of Slaves — Their Treatment 

Before taking a final leave of Soudan, it may be well to say 
a few words concerning the trade of the country. As the Nile 
is the principal avenue of communication between the Medi- 
terranean and the eastern half of Central Africa, Soudan is 
thus made a centre of commerce, the character of which may 
be taken as an index to all the interior traffic of the continent. 
European goods reach Soudan through two principal chan- 
nels ; by the port of Sowakin, on the Eed Sea, and the cara- 
van route up the Nile and across the Great Nubian Desert. 
Of late years the latter has become the principal thoroughfare, 
as winter is the commercial season, and the storms on the Eed 
Sea are very destructive to the small Arab craft. The mer- 
chants leave Cairo through the autumn, principally between 
the first of October and the first of December, as they travel 
slowly and rarely make the journey in less than two months 
and a half. The great proportion of them take the same route 



THE MERCHANTS OP SOUDAN. 385 

I followed, from Korosko to Berber, where they ship again for 
Khartoum. Those who buy their own camels at Assouan, 
make the whole trip by land ; but it is more usual for them to 
buy camels in Soudan for the return- journey, as they can sell 
them in Upper Egypt at advanced prices. In fact, the trade 
in camels alone is not inconsiderable. On my way to Khar- 
toum I met many thousands, in droves of from one to five 
hundred, on their way to Egypt. 

The merchants who make this yearly trip to Soudan are 
mostly Egyptians and Nubians. There are a number of Syr- 
ians established in the country, but they are for the most part 
connected with houses in Cairo, and their caravans between 
the two places are in charge of agents, natives, whose charac- 
ter has been proved by long service. There were also three or 
four French and Italian merchants, and one Englishman (Mr. 
Peterick, in Kordofan), who carried on their business in the 
same manner. It is no unusual thing for Nubians who have 
amassed two or three thousand piastres by household service 
in Cairo, to form partnerships, invest their money in cotton 
goods, and after a year or two on the journey (for time is any 
thing but money to them), return to Egypt with a few hundred 
weight of gum or half a dozen camels. They earn a few pias- 
tres, perhaps, in return for the long toils and privations they 
have endured ; but their pride is gratified by the title of Djel- 
labiat — merchants. It is reckoned a good school, and not 
without reason, for young Egyptians who devote themselves 
to commerce. I met even the sons of Beys among this class. 
Those who are prudent, and have a fair capital to start upon, 
can generally gain enough in two or three years to establish 
themselves respectably in Egypt. 
17 



386 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The goods brought into Central Africa consist principally 
of English muslins and calicoes, the light red woollen stuffs of 
Barbary, cutlery, beads and trinkets. Cloths, silks, powder, 
tobacco, and arakee, are also brought in considerable quanti- 
ties, while in the large towns there is always a good sale for 
sugar, rice, coffee and spices. The Turkish officials and the 
Franks are very fond of the aniseed cordial of Scio, maraschi- 
no, rosoglio, and the other Levantine liquors ; and even the 
heavy, resinous wines of Smyrna and Cyprus find their way 
here. The natives prefer for clothing the coarse, unbleached 
cotton stuffs of their own manufacture, one mantle of which is 
sufficient for years. As may readily be supposed, the market 
is frequently glutted with goods of this description, whence 
the large houses often send money from Cairo for the purchase 
of gum and ivory, in preference to running any risk. At the 
time of my visit, all sorts of muslins and calicoes might be had 
in Khartoum at a very slight advance on Cairo prices, and the 
merchants who were daily arriving with additional bales, com- 
plained that the sale would not pay the expenses of their jour- 
ney. The remarkable success of the caravans of the previous 
year had brought a crowd of adventurers into the lists, very 
few of whom realized their expectations. It was the Califor- 
nia experience in another form. No passion is half so blind 
as the greed for gain. 

. Khartoum is the great metropolis of all this region. Some 
few caravans strike directly through the Beyooda Desert, from 
Dongola to Kordofan, but the great part come directly to the 
former place, where they dispose of their goods, and then pro- 
ceed to Kordofan for gum, or wait the return of the yearly ex- 
pedition up the White Nile, to stock themselves with ivory. 



GUM AND IVOET. 387 

On both these articles there is generally a good, sometimes a 
great, profit. The gum comes almost entirely from Korclofan, 
where the quantity annually gathered amounts to thirty thou- 
sand contar, or cwt. It is collected by the natives from that 
variety of the mimosa called the asliaba, and sold by them at 
from fifty-five to sixty piastres the contar. Lattif Pasha at one 
time issued a decree prohibiting any person from selling it at 
less than sixty piastres, but Dr. Keitz, by an energetic protest, 
obtained the revocation of this arbitrary edict. The cost of 
carrying it to Cairo is very nearly fifty piastres the contar, 
exclusive of a government tax of twelve and a half per cent. ; 
and as the price of gum in Cairo fluctuates according to the 
demand from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty 
piastres, the merchant's gain may be as low as ten or as high 
as one hundred per cent. The gum brought from Yemen and 
the shores of the Red Sea is considered superior in quality, 
but is not produced in such abundance. 

The ivory is mostly obtained from the negro tribes on the 
White Nile. Small quantities are occasionally brought from 
Dar-Fur and the unknown regions towards Bornou, by Arab 
caravans. The trading expeditions up the White Nile, until the 
winter of 1851—2, were entirely under the control of the Pasha 
of Soudan, in spite of the treaty of 1838, making it free to 
all nations. The expedition of that winter, which sailed from 
Khartoum about two months before my arrival, consisted of 
seven vessels, accompanied by an armed force. The parties 
interested in it consisted of the Pasha, the Egyptian mer- 
chants, and the rayahs, or European merchants. The gains 
were to be divided into twenty-four parts, eight of which went 
to the Pasha, nine to the Turks and seven to the Franks. Dr. 



388 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Reitz undertook to enforce the treaty, and actually ran two 

vessels belonging to Austrian proteges past the guard estab- 
lished at the junction of the Niles. The Pasha thereupon had 
all the sailors belonging to these vessels arrested, but after two 
days of violent manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres, allowed 
the vessels to proceed. The unjust monopoly was therefore 
virtually annulled — an important fact to Europeans who may 
wish to engage in the trade. The vessels take with them 
great quantities of glass beads, ear, arm and nose rings, and 
the like, for which the natives readily barter their elephants' 
teeth. These are not found in abundance before .teaching the 
land of the Nuehrs and the Kyks, about lat. 7°, and the best 
specimens come from regions still further south. They ara 
sold in Khartoum at the rate of twelve hundred piastres the 
cwt., and in Cairo at twenty-two hundred, burdened with a tax 
of twelve and a half per cent. / 

The Grovermnent has done its best to cramp and injure 
Trade, the only life of that stagnant land. In addition to the 
custom-house at Assouan, where every thing going into Egypt 
must pay duty, the Pasha and his satellites had established an 
illegal custom-house at Dongola, and obliged merchants to pay 
another toll, midway on their journey. This was afterwards 
abolished, on account of the remonstrances which were forward- 
ed to Cairo. I found the Pasha so uniformly courteous and 
affable, that at first I rejected many of the stories told me of 
his oppression and cruelty, but I was afterwards informed of 
circumstances which exhibited his character in a still more 
hideous light. Nevertheless, I believe he was in most respects 
superior to his predecessors in the office, and certainly to his 
successor. 



THE SLAVE TRADE. 389 

The traffic in slaves has decreased very much of late. 
The wealthy Egyptians still purchase slaves, and will continue 
to do so, till the "institution" is wholly abolished, but the 
despotic rule exercised by the Pasha in Nubia has had the 
effect of greatly lessening the demand. Yast numbers of Nu- 
bians go into Egypt, where they are engaged as domestic ser- 
vants, and their paid labor, cheap as it is, is found more 
profitable than the unpaid service of negro slaves. Besides, 
the tax on the latter has been greatly increased, so that mer- 
chants find the commodity less profitable than gum or ivory. 
Ten years ago, the duty paid at Assouan was thirty piastres 
for a negro and fifty for an Abyssinian : at present it is three 
hundred and fifty for the former and five hundred and fifty for 
the latter, while the tax can be wholly avoided by making the 
slave free. Prices have risen in consequence, and the traffic is 
proportionately diminished. The Government probably de- 
rives as large a revenue as ever from it, on account of the in- 
creased tax, so that it has seemed to satisfy the demands of 
some of the European powers by restricting the trade, while it 
actually loses nothing thereby. The Government slave-hunts 
in the interior, however, are no longer carried on. The great- 
er part of the slaves brought to Khartoum, are purchased from 
the Galla and Shangalla tribes on the borders of Abyssinia, or 
from the Shillooks and Dinkas, on the White Nile. The cap- 
tives taken in the wars between the various tribes are invari- 
ably sold. The Abyssinian girls, who are in great demand 
among the Egyptians, for wives, are frequently sold by their 
own parents. They are treated with great respect, and their 
lot is probably no worse than that of any Arab or Turkish 
female. The more beautiful of them often bring from two 



390 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL 'AFRICA. 

hundred to five hundred dollars. Ordinary household servants 
may he had from one to two thousand piastres. My drago- 
man, Achmet, purchased a small girl for twelve hundred 
piastres, as a present for his wife. He intended making her 
free, which he declared to be a good thing, according to his 
religion; but the true reason, I suspect, was the tax at 
Assouan. ■ 

The Egyptians rarely maltreat their slaves, and instances 
of cruelty are much less frequent among them than among the 
Europeans settled here. The latter became so notorious for 
their violence that the Government was obliged to establish a 
law forbidding any Frank to strike his slave ; but in case of 
disobedience to send him before the Cadi, or Judge, who could 
decide on the proper punishment. Slavery prevails through- 
out all the native kingdoms of Central Africa, in more or less 
aggravated forms. • 

The Egyptian merchants who are located in Khartoum as 
agents for houses in Cairo, consider themselves as worse than 
exiles, and indemnify themselves by sensual indulgence for 
being obliged to remain in a country which they detest. 
They live in large houses, keep their harems of inky slaves, 
eat, drink and smoke away their languid and wearisome days. 
All the material which they need for such a life is so cheap 
that their love of gain does not suffer thereby. One of the 
richest merchants in the place gave me an account of his 
housekeeping. He had a large mud palace, a garden, and 
twenty servants and slaves, to maintain which cost him eight 
thousand piastres (four hundred dollars) a year. He paid his 
servants twenty piastres a month, and his slaves also — at least 
so he told me, but I did not believe it. 

/■9 fa . 



TUB NATIVES OF SOUDAN. 391 

As for the native Fellahs of Soudan, they are so crushed 
and imposed upon, that it is difficult to judge what their 
natural capacities really are. Foreigners, Frank as well as 
Egyptian, universally complain of their stupidity, and I heard 
the Pasha himself say, that if he could have done any thing 
with them Abbas Pasha might whistle to get Soudan from him. 
That they are very stupid, is true, but that they have every 
encouragement to be so, is equally true. Dr. Knoblecher, who, 
of all the men I saw in Khartoum, was best qualified to judge 
correctly, assured me that they needed only a just and pater- 
nal government, to make rapid progress in the arts of civiliza- 
tion. 



892 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

FROM KHARTOUM TO EL METEMMA. 

Farewell Breakfast — Departure from Khartoum — Parting with Dr. Reitz — A Predic- 
tion and its Fulfilment — Dreary Appearance of the Country — Lions — Burying- 
Grounds— The Natives — My Kababish Guide, Mohammed — Character of the Arabs 
— Habits of Deception — My Dromedary — Mutton and Mareesa — A Soudan Ditty — 
The Eowyan — Akaba Gerri — Heat and Scenery — An Altercation with the Guide — 
A Mishap — A Landscape — Tedious Approach to El Metemma — Appearance of the 
Town — Preparations for the Desert — Meeting Old Acquaintances. 

The wind blew so violently on the morning of my departure 
from Khartoum, that the ferry-boat which had been engaged 
to convey my equipage to the Kordofan shore, could not round 
the point at the junction of the Niles. My camels, with the 
Kababish guide and drivers, had been ferried over the evening 
previous, and were in readiness to start. In this dilemma Dr. 
Peney, with whom I had engaged to take a parting breakfast, 
kindly gave me the use of his neither and its crew. Our 
breakfast was a fete cliampetre under the beautiful nebbuk 
tree in the Doctor's court-yard, and consisted of a highly- 
spiced salmi of his own compounding, a salad of lettuce and 
tomatoes, and a bottle of Cyprus wine. The coolness and 
force of the north-wind gave us a keen appetite, and our kind 



DEPARTURE FROM KHARTOUM. 393 

host could not say that we slighted his culinary skill, for verily 
there was nothing hut empty _ plates to he seen, when we arose 
from the table. Dr. Reitz and I hastened on board the nek- 
ker, which immediately put off. I left Khartoum, regretting 
to leave a few friends behind me in that furnace of Soudan, 
yet glad to escape therefrom myself. A type of the character 
Of the place was furnished us while making our way to Omdur- 
nian. We passed the body of a woman, who had been stran- 
gled and thrown into the water ; a sight which the natives 
regarded without the least surprise. The Consul immediately 
dispatched one of his servants to the Governor of the city, ask- 
ing him to have the body taken away and properly interred. 
It was full two hours before we reached the western bank of 
the Nile, opposite Omdurman. Achmet, who had preceded 
me, had drummed up the Kababish, and they were in readi- 
ness with my camels. The work of apportioning and loading 
the baggage was finished by noon, and the caravan started, 
preceded by the guide, Mohammed, who shook his long spear 
in a general defiance of all enemies. 

Dr. Reitz and I, with our attendants, set off in advance on 
a quick trot. Our path led over a bleak, barren plain, cover 
ed with thorns, through which the wind whistled with a wintry 
sound. The air was filled with clouds of sand, which gave a 
pale and sickly cast to the sunshine. My friend was unwel; 
and desponding, and after we had ridden eight milefi, he halt- 
ed to rest in a deep, rocky gully, where we were sheltered 
from the wind. Here we lay down upon the sand until the 
caravan came along, when we parted from each other. " You are 
going back to Europe and Civilization ; " said he mournfully ; 
"you have an encouraging future before you — while I can onlv 
17* 



894 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

look forward to the prospect of leaving my bones in thia 
accursed land." He then embraced me, mounted his drome- 
dary, and was soon lost to my sight among the sand and thorns 
Little did I then imagine that his last words were the unhappy 
prediction which another year would see verified ! * 

We halted for the night near the village of Gerrari. I 
slept but indifferently, with the heavy head and gloomy spirits 
I had brought from Khartoum ; but the free life of my tent 
did not fail of its usual effect, and I rose the next morning 
fresh, strong, and courageous. We were obliged to travel 
slowly, on account of the nature of the road, which, for the 
greater part of the distance to El Metemma, lay in the Desert, 
just beyond the edge of the cultivated land. For the first day 

* Dr. Constantine Reitz died about a year after my departure from 
Soudan, from the effects of the climate. He had been ill for some 
months, and while making a journey to Kordofan, felt himself growing 
worse so rapidly that he returned to Khartoum, where he expired in a 
few days. He was about thirty-three years of age, and his many ac- 
quirements, joined to a character of singular energy and persistence, 
had led his friends to hope for important results from his residence in 
Central Africa. "With manners of great brusqueness and eccentricity, 
his generosity was unbounded, and this, combined with his intrepidity 
and his skill as a horseman and a hunter, made him a general favorite 
with the Arab chieftains of Ethiopia, whose cause he was always 
ready to advocate, against the oppressive measures of the Egyptian 
Government. It will always be a source of satisfaction to the author, 
that, in passing through Germany in September, 1852, he visited the 
parents of Dr. Reitz, whose father is a Forstmeister, or Inspector of 
Forests, near Darmstadt. The joy which they exhibited on hearing 
from their son through one who had so recently seen him, was mixed 
with sadness as they expressed the fear that they would never see him 
again — a fear, alas ! too soon realized. 



APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. 395 

or two, we rode over dry, stony plains, covered with thickets 
of the small thorny mimosa and patches of long yellow grass. 
The country is crossed by deep gullies, through which the 
streams formed by the summer rains flow to the Nile. Their 
banks are lined with a thick growth of sont, nebbuk, and other 
trees peculiar to Central Africa, in which many lions make 
their lairs and prey upon the flocks of the Arabs. One bold, 
fierce fellow had established himself on the island of Musakar 
Bey, just below the junction of the Nile, and carried off night- 
ly a sheep or calf, defying the attempts of the natives to take 
him. Our view was confined to the thorns, on whose branches 
we left many shreds of clothing as mementoes of the journey, 
and to the barren range of Djebel Gerrari, stretching west- 
ward into the Desert. Occasionally, however, in crossing the 
low spurs which ran out from . this chain, the valley "of the 
Nile — the one united Nile again — lay before us, far to the 
east and north-east, the river glistening in the sun as he spread 
his arms round island after island, till his lap could hold no 
more. The soil is a poor, coarse gravel, and the inhabitants 
support themselves by their herds of sheep and goats, which 
browse on the thorns. In places there are large thickets of 
the usher, or euphorbia, twenty feet high. It grows about the 
huts of the natives, who make no attempt to exterminate it, 
notwithstanding the poisonous nature of its juice. Every mile 
or two we passed a large Arab burying-ground, crowded with 
rough head and foot-stones, except where white pennons, flut- 
tering on poles, denoted a more than ordinary sanctity in the 
deceased. The tomb of the Shekh, or holy man of Merreh, 
was a conical structure of stones and clay, about fifteen feet in 
breadth at the base, and twenty feet high. The graves are so 



396 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

numerous and the dwellings so few, that one has the impres- 
sion of .travelling in a country depopulated by the pestilence; 
yet we met many persons on the road — partly Kababish, and 
partly natives of Dongola and Mahass. The men touched 
their lips and foreheads on passing me, and the women greet- 
ed me with that peculiar " hab-bab-ba ! " which seems to be 
the universal expression of salutation among the various tribes 
of Central Africa. 

My guide, Mohammed, was a Kababish, and the vainest 
and silliest Arab I ever knew. He wore his hair in long 
braids, extending from the forehead and temples to the nape 
of the neck, and kept in their places by a layer of mutton-fat, 
half an inch thick, which filled up the intervening spaces. 
His hollow cheeks, deep-sunken eyes, thin and wiry beard, and 
the long spear he carried in his hand made him a fair represen- 
tative of Don Quixote, and the resemblance was not diminished 
by the gaunt and ungainly camel on which he jogged along at 
the head of my caravan. He was very devout, praying for 
quite an unreasonable length of time before and after meals, 
and always had a large patch of sand on his forehead, from 
striking it on the ground, as he knelt towards Mecca. Both 
his arms, above the elbows, were covered with rings of hippo- 
potamus hide, to which were attached square leathern cases, 
containing sentences of the Koran, as charms to keep away 
sickness and evil spirits. The other man, Said, was a Shy- 
gheean, willing and good-natured enough, but slow and regard- 
less of truth, as all Arabs are. Indeed, the best definition of 
an Arab which I can give, is — a philosophizing sinner. His 
fatalism gives him a calm and equable temperament under all 
circumstances, and " G-od wills it!" or " God is merciful!" 



CHARACTER OF THE ARABS. 397 

is the solace for every misfortune. But this same careless- 
ness to the usual accidents of life extends also to his speech and 
his dealings -with other men. I will not say that an Arab 
never speaks truth : on the contrary, he always does, if he 
happens to remember it, and there is no object to be gained 
by suppressing it ; but rather than trouble himself to answer 
correctly a question which requires some thought, he tells you 
whatever comes uppermost in his mind, though certain to be 
detected the next minute. He is like a salesman, who, if he 
does not happen to have the article you want, offers you some • 
thing else, rather than let you go away empty-handed. In 
regard to his dealings, what Sir Gardner "Wilkinson says of 
Egypt, that " nobody parts with money without an effort to 
defraud," is equally true of Nubia and Soudan. The people 
do not steal outright ; but they have a thousand ways of doing 
it in an indirect and civilized manner, and they are perfect 
masters of all those petty arts of fraud which thrive so greenly 
in the great commercial cities of Christendom. "With these 
slight drawbacks, there is much to like in the Arabs, and they 
are certainly the most patient, assiduous and good-humored 
people in the world. If they fail in cheating you, they re- 
spect you the more, and they are so attentive to you, so ready 
to take their mood from yours — to laugh when you are cheer- 
ful, and be silent when you are grave — so light-hearted in the 
performance of severe duties, that if you commence your ac- 
quaintance by despising, you finish by cordially liking them. 

On a journey like that which I was then commencing, it is 
absolutely necessary to preserve a good understanding with 
your men and beasts ; otherwise travel will be a task, and a 
severe one, instead of a recreation. After my men had vainly 



398 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

tried a number of expedients, to get the upper hand of me, I 
drilled them into absolute obedience, and found their charac- 
ter much improved thereby. With my dromedary, whom I 
called Abou-Sin, (the Father of Teeth), from the great shekh 
of the Shukoree Arabs, to whom he originally belonged, I was 
soon on good terms. He was a beast of excellent temper, 
with a spice of humor in his composition, and a fondness for 
playing practical jokes. But as I always paid them back, 
neither party could complain, though Abou-Sin sometimes 
gurgled out of his long throat a string of Arabic gutturals, in 
remonstrance. He came up to my tent and knelt at precisely 
the same hour every evening, to get his feed of dourra, and 
when I was at breakfast always held his lips pursed up, ready 
to take the pieces of bread I gave him. My men, whom I agreed 
to provide with food during the journey, were regaled every 
day with mutton and mareesa, the two only really good things 
to be found in Soudan. A fat sheep cost 8 piastres (40 cents), 
and we killed one every three days. The meat was of excel- 
lent flavor. Mareesa is made of the coarse grain called dour- 
ra, which is pounded into flour by hand, mixed with water, and 
heated over a fire in order to produce speedy fermentation. It 
is always drunk the day after being made, as it turns sour on 
the third day. It is a little stronger than small beer, and has 
a taste similar to wheat bran, unpleasant on the first trial and 
highly palatable on the second. A jar holding two gallons 
.. K" costs one piastre, and as few families, however poor, are with- 
out it, we always found plenty of it for sale in the villages. It 
is nutritious, promotive of digestion, and my experience went to 
prove that it was not only a harmless but most wholesome drink 
in that stifling climate. Om bilbil, the mother of nightingaleSj 



A SOUDAN DITTY. 399 

■which is made from wheat, is stronger, and has a pungent 
flavor. The people in general are remarkably temperate, but 
sailors and camel-men are often not content without arakee, a 
sort of weak brandy made from dates. I have heard this song 
sung so often that I cannot choose but recollect the words. It 
is in the Arabic jargon of Soudan :■ 

"El-toombak sheraboo dowaia, 
Oo el karafeen ed dowa il 'es-sufaia, 
Oo el arakee leglieetoo monna'ia, 
Om bilbil bukkoosoo burraia." 

[Tobacco I smoke in the pipe ; and mareesa is a medicine 
to the sufaia ; (i. e. the bag of palm fibres through which it is 
strained), but arakee makes me perfectly contented, and then 
T will not even look at bilbil]. 

The third day after leaving Khartoum, I reached the 
mountains of G-erri, through which the Nile breaks his way in 
a narrow pass. Here I hailed as an old. acquaintance the 
island-hill of Rowyan (the watered, or unthirsty). This is 
truly a magnificent peak, notwithstanding its height is not 
more than seven hundred feet. Neither is Soracte high, yet it 
produces a striking effect, even with the loftier Apennines 
behind it. The Rowyan is somewhat similar to Soracte in 
form. There are a few trees on the top, which shows that 
there must be a deposit of soil above its barren ramparts, and 
were I a merchant of Khartoum I should build a summer resi- 
dence there, and by means of hydraulics create a grove and 
garden around it. The akaba, or desert pass, which we were 
obliged to take in order to reach the river again, is six hours 
in length, through a wild, stony tract, covered with immense 



400 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

boulders of granite, hurled and heaped together in the same 
chaotic manner as is exhibited in the rocks between Assouan 
and Phihe. After passing the range, a wide plain again open- 
ed before us,, the course of the Nile marked in its centre by the 
darker hue of the nebbuks and sycamores, rising above the 
long gray belts of thorn-trees. The mountains which inclose 
the fallen temples of Mesowurat and Naga appeared far to the 
east. The banks of the river here are better cultivated than 
further up the stream. The wheat, which was just sprouting, 
during my upward journey, was now two feet high, and rolled 
before the wind in waves of dark, intense, burning green. 
The brilliancy of color in these mid- African landscapes is truly 
astonishing. 

The north-wind, which blew the sand furiously in our faces 
during the first three days of the journey, ceased at this point, 
and the weather became once more intensely hot. The first 
two or three hours of the morning were, nevertheless, deli- 
cious. The temperature was mild, and there was a June-like 
breeze which bore far and wide the delicate odor of the mimo- 
sa blossoms. The trees were large and thick, as on the White 
Nile, forming long, orchard-like belts between the grain-fields 
and the thorny clumps of the Desert. The flocks of black 
goats which the natives breed, were scattered among these 
trees, and numbers of the animals stood perfectly upright on 
their hind legs, as they nibbled off the ends of the higher 
branches. 

On the morning after leaving Akaba (Jerri, I had two al- 
tercations with my men. Mohammed had left Khartoum 
without a camel, evidently for the purpose of saving money. 
In a day or two, however, he limped so much that I put him 



AN ALTERCATION WITH THE GUIDE. 401 

upon Achmet's dromedary for a few hours. This was an im- 
position, for every guide is obliged to furnish his own camel, 
and I told the old man that he should ride no more. He there- 
upon prevailed upon Said to declare that their contract was to 
take me to Ambukol, instead of Merawe. This, considering 
that the route had been distinctly stated to them by Dr. Keitz, 
in my presence, and put in writing by the moodir, Ahdallah 
Effendi, and that the name of Ambukol was not once mention- 
ed, was a falsehood of the most brazen character. I told the 
men they were liars, and that sooner than yield to them I- 
would return to Khartoum and have them punished, where- 
upon they saw they had gone too far, and made a seeming com- 
promise by declaring that they would willingly take me to 
Merawe, if I wished it. 

Towards noon we reached the village of Derreira, nearly 
opposite the picturesque rapids of the Nile. I gave Moham- 
med half a piastre and sent him after mareesa, two gallons of 
which he speedily procured. A large gourd was filled for me, 
and I drank about a quart without taking breath. Before it 
had left my lips, I experienced a feeling of vigor and elasticity 
throughout my whole frame, which refreshed me for the re- 
mainder of the day. Mohammed stated that the tents of some 
of his tribe were only about four hours distant, and asked leave 
to go and procure a camel, promising to rejoin us at El Me- 
temma the next day. As Said knew the way, and could have 
piloted me in case the old sinner should not return, I gave 
him leave to go. 

Achmet and I rode for nearly two hours over a stony, 
thorny plain, before we overtook the baggage camels. When 
at last we came in sight of them, the brown camel was running 



402 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

loose without his load and Said trying to catch him. My pro- 
vision-chests were tumbled upon the ground, the cafass broken 
to pieces and the chickens enjoying the liberty of the Desert. 
Said, it seemed, had stopped to talk with some women, leaving 
the camel, which was none too gentle, to take care of himself. 
Achmet was so incensed that he struck the culprit in the face, 
whereupon he cried out, with a rueful voice : u ya Jchosara /" 
(oh, what a misfortune !). After half an hour's labor the 
boxes were repacked, minus their broken crockery, the chickens 
caught and the camel loaded. The inhabitants of this region 
were mostly Shygheeans, who had emigrated thither. They 
are smaller and darker than the people of Mahass, but resem- 
ble them in character. In one of the villages which we pass- 
ed, the soog, or market, was being held. I rode through the 
crowd to see what they had to sell, but found only the simplest 
articles : camels, donkeys, sheep, goats ; mats, onions, butter, 
with some baskets of raw cotton and pieces of stuff spun and 
woven by the natives. The sales must be principally by bar- 
ter, as there is little money in the country. 

In the afternoon we passed another akaba, even more diffi- 
cult for camels than that of Gerri. The tracks were rough 
and stony, crossed by frequent strata of granite and porphyry. 
From the top of one of the ridges I had a fine view of a little 
valley of mimosas which lay embayed in the hills and washed 
by the Nile, which here curved grandly round from west to 
south, his current glittering blue and broad in the sun. The 
opposite bank was flat and belted with wheat fields, beyond 
which stretched a gray forest of thorns and then the yellow sa- 
vannas of Shendy, walled in the distance by long, blue, broken 
ranges of mountains. The summit of a hill near our road was 



APPROACH TO EL METEMMA. 403 

Burrounded with a thick wall, formed of natural blocks of black 
porphyry. It had square, projecting bastions at regular inter- 
vals, and an entrance on the western side. From its appear- 
ance, form and position, it had undoubtedly been a stronghold 
of some one of the Arab tribes, and can claim no great antiqui- 
ty. I travelled on until after sunset, when, as no village ap- 
peared, I camped in a grove of large mimosas, not far from 
the Nile. A few Shygheean herdsmen were living in brush 
huts near at hand, and dogs and jackals howled incessantly 
through the night. 

On the fifth day I reached the large town of El Metemma, 
nearly opposite Shendy, and the capital of a negro kingdom, 
before the Egyptian usurpation. The road, on approaching it, 
leads over a narrow plain, covered with a shrub resembling 
heather, bordered on one side by the river, and on the other 
by a long range of bare red sand-hills. "VVe journeyed for 
more than three hours, passing point after point of the hills, 
only to find other spurs stretching out ahead of us. From the 
intense heat I was very anxious to reach El Metemma, and 
was not a little rejoiced when I discerned a grove of date-trees, 
which had been pointed out to me from Shendy, a month before, 
as the landmark of the place. Soon a cluster of buildings ap- 
peared on the sandy slopes, but as we approached, I saw they 
were ruins. We turned another point, and reached another 
group of tokuls and clay houses — ruins also. Another point, 
and more ruins, and so for more than a mile before we reach- 
ed the town, which commences at the last spur of the hills, 
and extends along the plain for a mile and a half. 

It is a long mass of one-story mud buildings, and the most 
miserable place of its size that I have seen in Central Africa. 



404 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

There is no bazaar, but an open market-place, where the peo- 
ple sit on the ground and sell their produce, consisting of 
dourra, butter dates, onions, tobacco and a few grass mats. 
There may be a mosque in the place, but in the course of my 
ramble through the streets, I saw nothing that looked like 
one. Half the houses appeared to be uninhabited, and the 
natives were a hideous mixture of the red tribes of Mahass 
and Shygheea and the negro races of Soudan. A few people 
were moving lazily through the dusty and filthy lanes, but the 
greater portion were sitting in the earth, on the shady side of 
the houses. In one of the streets I was taken for the Medical 
Inspector of the town, a part of whose business it is to see 
that it is kept free from filth. Two women came hastily out 
of the houses and began sweeping vigorously, saying to me as 
I came up : " You see, we are sweeping very clean." It would 
have been much more agreeable to me, had the true Inspector 
gone his rounds the day before. El Metemma and Shendy are 
probably the most immoral towns in all Central Africa. The 
people informed me that it was a regular business for persons 
to buy female slaves, and hire them for the purpose of prosti- 
tution, all the money received in this vile way going into the 
owner's pocket. 

I was occupied the rest of the day and the next morning 
in procuring and filling additional water-skins, and preparing 
to cross the Beyooda. Achmet had a quantity of bread baked, 
for the journey would occupy seven or eight days, and there 
was no possibility of procuring provisions on the road. Mo- 
hammed did not make his appearance at the appointed time, 
and I determined to start without him, my caravan being in- 
creased by a Dongolese merchant, and a poor Shygheean, 



MEETING OLD ACQUAINTANCES. 405 

whose only property was a club and a wooden bowl, and who 
asked leave to help tend the camels for the sake of food and 
water on the way. All of the Beyooda, which term is applied 
to the broad desert region west of the Nile and extending 
southward from Nubia to Kordofan and Dar-Fur, is infested 
with marauding tribes of Arabs, and though at present their 
depredations are less frequent than formerly, still, from the 
total absence of all protection, the traveller is exposed to con- 
siderable risk. For this reason, it is not usual to find small 
parties traversing this route, as in the Nubian Desert. 

I added to my supplies a fat sheep, a water-skin filled with 
mareesa, a sheaf of raw onions (which are a great luxury in 
the Desert), and as many fowls as could be procured in El 
Metemma. Just as we were loading the camels, who should 
come up but Beshir and two or three more of the Mahassee 
sailors, who had formed part of my crew from Berber to 
Khartoum. They came up and kissed my hand, exclaiming : 
" May God prosper you, Effendi ! " They immediately set 
about helping to load the camels, giving us, meanwhile, news 
of every thing that had happened. Beshir's countenance fell 
when I asked him about his Metemma sweetheart, Gammero- 
Betahadjero ; she had proved faithless to him. The America 
was again on her way from Berber to Khartoum, with a com- 
pany of merchants. The old slave, Bakhita, unable to bear 
the imputation of being a hundred and fifty years old, had run 
away from the vessel. When the camels were loaded and we 
were ready to mount, I gave the sailors a few piastres to buy 
mareesa and sent them away rejoicing. 



406 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTEE XXXII. 

THE BEYOODA DESERT. 

Entering the Desert — Character of the Scenery — Wells— Fear of the Arabs— The L*- 
loom Tree— Effect of the Hot Wind — Mohammed overtakes us— Arab Endurance— 
An unpleasant Bedfellow — Comedy of the Crows — Gazelles — We encounter a Sand- 
storm — The Mountain of Thirst— The Wells of Djeekdud — A Mountain Pass- 
Desert Intoxication — Scenery of the Table-land— Bir Khannik — The Kababis* 
Arabs— Gazelles again — Euins of an Ancient Coptic Monastery— Distant View of th> 
Nile Valley — Djebel Berkel — We come into Port. 

" He sees the red sirocco wheeling 
Its sandy columns o'er the waste, 
And streams through palmy valleys stealing, 
Where the plumed ostrich speeds in haste." — Fkeiligkath. 

We left El Metemma at noon, on the tenth" of February. 
Crossing the low ridge of red sand, at the foot of which the 
town is built, the wind came fresh to meet us, across the long, 
level savanna of yellow grass and shrubs which stretched away 
to the west and north, without a bound. The prospect was 
exhilarating, after the continual hem of thorns, which had lined 
our road from Khartoum. It was a great relief to turn the 
eye from the bare, scorching mud walls of the town, to the 
freshness and freedom of the Desert. I took a last look at the 
wheat-fields of the Nile, and then turned my face northward, 



ENTERING THE DESERT. 407 

towards the point where I expected to meet his current again. 
The plain was very level, and the road excellent for our 
camels. In places where there was a slight depression of the 
soil, a long, slender species of grass grew in thick tufts, afford- 
ing nourishment to the herds of the wandering Arab tribes. 
There were also narrow belts of white thorn and a curious 
shrub, with leaves resembling the jasmine. In two hours we 
reached a well, where some Kababish were drawing water for 
their goats and asses. It was about twenty feet deep, and the 
water was drawn in skins let down with ropes. "We kept on 
until sunset, when we encamped in an open, gravelly space, 
surrounded with patches of grass, on which the camels brows- 
ed. The hot weather of the past two or three days had called 
into life a multitude of winged and creeping insects, and they 
assailed me on all sides. 

The next morning, after travelling more than two hours 
over the plain, we reached a series of low hills, or rather swells 
of the Desert, covered with black gravel and fragments of por- 
phyritic rock. They appeared to be outlying spurs of a moun- 
tain range which we saw to the northwest. From the highest 
of them we saw before us a long, shallow valley, opening far 
to the north-east. It was thickly covered with tufts of yellow- 
ish-green grass, sprinkled with trees of various kinds. The 
merchant pointed out a grove in the distance as the location 
of Bir Abou-leer, the first well on the road. His sharp eye 
discerned a company of Arabs, who were encamped near it, and 
who, seeing Achmet and myself in our Turkish dresses, were 
preparing to fly. He urged his dromedary into a fast trot and 
rode ahead to reassure them. They were a tall, wild-looking 
people, very scantily dressed ; the men had long black hair, 



408 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

moustaches and beards, and carried spears in their handa. 
They looked at us with suspicion, hut did not refuse the cus- 
tomary " hab-bab-ba ! " The wells were merely pits, not more 
than four or five feet deep, dug in the clayey soil, and contain- 
ing at the bottom a constant supply of cool, sweet water. We 
watered our camels in basins scooped for that purpose in the 
earth, and then took breakfast under the thorns. Among the 
trees in the wady was one resembling the nebbuk in foliage, and 
with a fruit similar in appearance, but larger and of different 
flavor. The Arabs called it laloom, and gathered some of the 
fruit for me to taste. It has a thin, brittle outer rind, con- 
taining a hard stone, covered with a layer of gummy paste, 
most intensely sweet and bitter in the mouth. It has precise- 
ly the flavor of the medicine known to children as Hive Syrup, 
We resumed our course along the wady, nearly to its ter- 
mination at the foot of the mountains, when the road turned 
to the right over another succession of hard, gravelly ridges, 
flanked on the west by hills of coal-black porphyry. During 
the afternoon the wind was sometimes as hot as a furnace- 
blast, and I felt my very blood drying up in its intensity. I 
had no means of ascertaining the temperature, but it could not 
have been less than 105°. Nevertheless, the sky was so clear 
and blue, the sunshine so perfect, and the Desert so inspiring 
that I was in the most exulting mood. In fact, the powerful 
dry heat of the air produced upon me a bracing effect, similar 
to that of sharp cold. It gave me a sensation of fierce, savage 
vigor, and I longed for an Arab lance and the fleet hoofs of 
the red stallion I had left in Khartoum. At times the burn- 
ing blasts were flavored with a strong aromatic odor, like that 
of dried lavender, which was as stimulating to the lungs as 



MOHAMMED OVERTAKES US. 409 

herb-tea to the stomach. Our provisions soon felt the effects 
of this continual dry heat. Dates became as pebbles of jasper, 
and when I asked my servant for bread, he gave me a stone. 

As we were journeying along over the plain, we spied a 
man on a camel trotting behind us, and in half an hour, lo ! 
Mohammed the guide. The old scamp came up with a 
younger brother behind him, whom he had brought without 
asking permission, and without bringing food for him. This 
made eight persons I was obliged to feed, and as our bread 
and meat were only calculated for six, I put them on allow- 
ance. Mohammed had his hair newly plaited and covered 
with a layer of mutton-fat, a quarter of an inch thick. I saw 
very little of the vaunted temperance of the Arabs. True, 
they will live on dates — when they can get nothing else ; and 
they will go without water for a day — when they have none. 
I found a quart of water daily amply sufficient for my own 
needs, notwithstanding the great heat we endured ; but I do 
not think one of the men drank less than a gallon in the same 
time, and as for their eating, Achmet frequently declared that 
they would finish a whole sheep before getting to "el hamdu 
lillah ! " — the usual Arabic grace after meat. 

Towards sunset we reached an open space of ground which 
had not been touched since the rains of the previous summer. 
The soil had been washed smooth and then dried away in the 
sun, leaving a thin, cracked crust, like that which frequently 
forms after a light snow-fall. Our camel's feet broke through 
at every step, making the only trails which crossed it, except 
those of gazelles and vultures. Achmet was about to pitch 
my tent near some snaky-looking holes, but I had it moved to 
a clearer spot. I slept without interruption, but in the morn- 
18 



410 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ing, as lie was about to roll up my mattrass, he suddenly let it 
drop and rushed out of the tent, exclaiming : " Oh master, 
come out ! come out ! There is a great snake in your bed ! " 
I looked, and truly enough, there was an ugly spotted reptile 
coiled up on the straw matting. The men heard the alarm, 
and my servant Ali immediately came running up with a club. 
As he was afraid to enter the tent, he threw it to me, and 
with one blow I put the snake beyond the power of doing 
harm. It was not more than two feet long, but thick and club- 
shaped, and with a back covered with green, brown and yellow 
scales, very hard and bright. The Arabs, who by this 
time had come to the rescue, said it was a most venomous 
creature, its bite causing instant death. " Allah Jcereem ! " 
(God is merciful !) I exclaimed, and they all heartily respond- 
ed : "God be praised!" They said that the occurrence-de- 
noted long life to me. Although no birds were to be seen at 
the time, not ten minutes had elapsed before two large crows 
appeared in the air. After wheeling over us once or twice, 
they alighted near the snake. At first, they walked around it 
at a distance, occasionally exchanging glances, and turning up 
their heads in a shrewd manner, which plainly said : " No you 
don't, old fellow ! want to make us believe you're dead, do 
you?" They bantered each other to take hold of it first, and 
at last the boldest seized it suddenly by the tail, jumped back- 
ward two or three feet and then let it fall. He looked at the 
other, as much as to say : " If he's not dead, it's a capital 
sham ! " The other made a similar essay, after which they 
alternately dragged and shook it, and consulted some time, 
before they agreed that it was actually dead. One of them 
then took it by the tail and sailed off through the air, its scales 
glittering in the sun as it dangled downward. 



WE ENCOUNTER A SAND-STORM. 411 

On the third day we left the plain and entered on a region 
of black, stony ridges, with grass and thorns in the long hol- 
lows between them. The sky was so clear that the moon (in 
her last quarter) was visible until nearly noon. About ten 
o'clock, from one Of the porphyry hills, I caught sight of 
Djebel Attshan, or the Mountain of Thirst, which crosses the 
middle of the Beyooda. It was in the north and north-west, 
apparently about thirty miles distant. During the morning 
I saw four beautiful gazelles, not more than a stone's throw 
distant. One of them was lame, which induced me to believe 
that I could catch it. I got down from my camel and crept 
stealthily to the crest of the ridge, but when I looked down 
the other side, no gazelle was to be seen. Half a dozen nar 
row gullies branched away among the loose mounds of stones, 
and further search would have been useless. 

At noon we reached another and different region. The 
grass and thorns disappeared, and the swells of black gravel 
gave place to long drifts of bright yellow sand which extended on 
all sides as far as the eye could reach. We toiled on, over drift 
after drift, but there was still the same dreary yellow waste, 
whitening in the distance under the glare of the sun. At first, 
the air was so tremulous with the radiated heat, that the whole 
landscape glittered and wavered like the sea, and the brain 
became giddy from gazing on its unsteady lines. But as the 
wind began to blow more violently, this disappeared. The 
sky then became obscured nearly to the zenith, with a dull 
purple haze, arising from the myriads of fine grains of sand 
with which the air was filled. The sun became invisible, 
although there were no clouds in the sky, and we seemed to be 
journeying under a firmament of rusty copper. The drifts 



412 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

were constantly forming and changing shape, and the sand 
vibrated along their edges or scudded in swift ripples over the 
plain, with that dry, sharp sound one hears in winter, when 
the " North-wind's masonry" is going on. The air was with- 
ering in its fierce heat and occasioned intense thirst, which, 
fortunately, we were able to relieve. The storm grew more 
violent and the burning labyrinths of sand more intricate, as 
we advanced. The path was hidden under drifts five or six feet 
in height, and the tall yellow walls were creeping every minute 
nearer, to cover it completely. The piles of stones, however, 
which the Arabs have made on the tops of the ridges and 
replace as often as they are thrown down, guided us, and after 
three hours and a half in a spot which might serve as the 
fourth circle of Dante's Hell, we emerged on the open plain 
and saw again the Mountain of Thirst, which had been hidden 
all this time. The camels, which were restless and uneasy in 
the sand, now walked more cheerily. The sun came out again, 
but the sky still retained its lurid purple hue. We all drank 
deeply of the brown leathery contents of our water-skins and 
pushed steadily onward till camping-time, at sunset. While 
the storm lasted, the Arabs crouched close under the flanks of 
the camels and sheltered themselves from the sand. Achmet 
and the Congolese merchant unrolled their turbans and 
muflled them around their faces, but on following their exam- 
ple I experienced such a stifling sensation of heat that I at 
once desisted, and rode with my head exposed as usual. 

We halted in a meadow-like hollow, full of abundant grass, 
in which the weary camels made amends for their hardships. 
The wind howled so fiercely around my tent that I went to 
sleep expecting to have it blown about my ears before morn- 



THE WELLS OF DJEEKDUD. 413 

ing. Djebel Attshan was dimly visible in the starlight, and 
we saw the light of fires kindled by the Arabs who live at the 
wells of Djeekdud. Sai'd was anxious to go on to the wells 
and have a carouse with the natives, and when I refused 
threatened to leave me and go on alone to Merawe. " G-o ! " 
said I, "just as soon as you like" — but this was the very thing 
he did not want. The heat which I had absorbed through the 
day began to ooze out again as the temperature of the air fell, 
and my body glowed until midnight like a mass of molten 
metal. On lifting up my blanket, that night, a large scorpion 
tumbled out, but scampered away so quickly that we could not 
kill him. 

We were up betimes the next morning, and off for Bir 
Dje-ekdud. At ten o'clock we entered a wide valley extending 
to the southern base of the mountains. It was quite over- 
grown with bushy tufts of grass and scattering clumps of 
trees. Herds of goats and sheep, with a few camels and don- 
keys, were browsing over its surface, and I saw the Arab herds- 
men at a distance. The wells lie in a narrow wady, shut in by 
the mountains, about two miles east of the caravan track. We 
therefore halted in the shade of a spreading mimosa, and sent 
Said and the guide's brother with the water-skins. I took my 
breakfast leisurely, and was lying on my back, half lulled to 
sleep by the singing of the wind, when the Dongolese arrived. 
He gave us to drink from his fresh supply of water, and in- 
formed us that the wells in the valley were not good, but that 
there was a deposit in the rocks above, which was pure and 
sweet. I therefore sent Ali off in all haste on one of my 
dromedaries, to have my skins filled from the latter place, 
which occasioned a further delay of two hours. An Arab 



414 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

family of the small Saurat tribe, which inhabits that region, 
was encamped at a little distance, but did not venture to 
approach. 

Ali described the well as a vast natural hollow in the 
porphyry rock, in the centre of a basin, or valley, near the top 
of the mountain. The water is held as in a tank ; it is from 
twenty to thirty feet deep, and as clear as crystal. The taste 
is deliciously pure and fresh. If I had known this in time, I 
should have visited the place. The valley of Djeekdud is 
about two miles broad, inclosed on the north by the dark-red 
porphyry rocks of the Mountain of Thirst, and on the south by 
a smaller group of similar formation. It is crossed in two 
places by broad strata of red granite. As water can readily 
be obtained in any part of it by digging, the whole of it is 
capable of cultivation. 

Leaving our halting place, we journeyed westward through 
a gate of the mountains into a broader valley, where numerous 
herds of sheep were feeding. I saw but few Arabs, and those 
were mostly children, who had charge of the herds. The 
tribe resides principally in the mountains, on account of great- 
er security against the attacks of enemies. The afternoon was 
hot like all preceding ones, and my Arabs drank immense 
quantities of water. We kept on our course until five o'clock, 
when we encamped opposite a broad valley, which broke into 
the mountains at right angles to their course. It was a wild 
spot, and the landscape, barren as it was, possessed much 
natural beauty. During the afternoon we left the high road to 
Ambukol, and took a branch track leading to Merawe, which 
lay more to the northward. 

The next morning, after skirting the porphyry range for 



DESERT INTOXICATION 415 

several hours, we entered a narrow valley leading into its 
depths. The way was stony and rough, and we travelled for 
three hours, constantly ascending, up the dry bed of a summer 
stream. The mountains rose a thousand feet above us in 
some places. Near the entrance of the valley, we passed an 
Arab watering a large flock of sheep at a pool of green water 
which lay in a hollow of the rocks. After ascending the pass 
for nearly four hours, we crossed the summit ridge and enter- 
ed on a high table-land, eight or ten miles in length and 
entirely surrounded by branches of the mountain chain. The 
plain was thinly covered with grass, mimosas and nebbuk, 
among which a single camel was browsing. At night we 
reached the opposite side, and encamped at the foot of a lofty 
black spur of the mountains, not far from a well which Moham- 
med called Bir Abou-Seray. 

During the night I was troubled with a heavy feeling in 
the head, and found it almost impossible to sleep. I arose 
with a sensation of giddiness, which continued all day. At 
times I found it very difficult to maintain my seat on the 
dromedary. It required a great effort to keep my eyes open, 
as the sunshine increased the symptoms. This condition 
affected my mind in a singular manner. Past scenes in my 
life revived, with so strong an impression of reality, that I no 
longer knew where I was. The hot, yellow landscape around 
me, was a dream ; the cries of my camel-drivers were fantastic 
sounds which my imagination had conjured up. After a most 
bewildering and fatiguing day, I drank several cups of strong 
tea, rolled myself in a thick cotton quilt, and sweat to distrac- 
tion until morning. The moisture I lost relieved my head, as 
a shower clears a sultry sky, and the symptoms gradually left 



418 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

me. Whether they were caused by breathing a more rarefied 
atmosphere,— for the plain was nearly fifteen hundred feet 
above the Nile level — in a heat more than usually intense, or 
by an attack of that malady which Richardson aptly calls the 
" intoxication of the Desert," I cannot decide. 

After leaving Bir Abou-Seray, we continued our slow de- 
scent of the northern side of the mountain range, by a wind- 
ing valley, following the dry bed of a summer river. The 
mountains were a thousand feet high and linked in regular 
ranges, which had a general north-east and south-west direc- 
tion. The landscapes of the day were all exceedingly wild 
and picturesque. The vegetation was abundant along the 
banks of the river-bed, the doum-palm appearing occasionally 
among the groves of thorn and nebbuk. In some places the 
river had washed the bases of the mountains and laid bare 
their huge strata of rock, whose round black masses glittered 
in the sunshine, showing the gradual polish of the waves. 
Towards noon the pass enlarged into a broad plain, six miles 
in diameter, and entirely bounded by mountains. To the north- 
east it opened into another and larger plain, across whose blue 
surface rose the pyramidal peaks of a higher mountain chain 
than I had yet seen. Some of them were upwards of two 
thousand feet in height. The scenery here was truly grand 
and imposing. Beyond the plain we passed into a broader 
valley, girdled by lower hills. The river-bed, which we crossed 
from time to time, increased in breadth and showed a more 
dense vegetation on its banks. We expected to have reached 
another well, but there was no sign of it at sunset, and as I 
had already found that my guide, Mohammed, knew nothing 
of the road, I encamped at once 



A BARBARIC SCENE. 417 

We arose by daybreak, hoping to reach, the Nile. After 
somewhat more than two hours' journey, we met a caravan of 
about three hundred camels, laden with bales of cotton drill- 
ings, for the clothing of the new regiments of soldiers then 
being raised in Soudan. The foremost camels were a mile 
from Bir Khannik, while the hindmost were still drinking at 
the well. The caravan had Kababish drivers and guides — 
wild, long-haired, half-naked Arabs, with spears in their hands 
and shields of hippopotamus hide on their shoulders. They 
told us we were still a day and a half from Merawe. We rode 
on to the well, which was an immense pit, dug in the open 
plain. It was about fifty feet deep, and the Arabs were oblig- 
ed to draw the water in skins let down with ropes. The top 
curved into the well like a shallow bowl, from the earth con- 
tinually crumbling down, and the mouth of the shaft was pro- 
tected by trunks of trees, on which the men stood while they 
drew the water. Around the top were shallow basins lined with 
clay, out of which' the camels drank. The fierce Kababish 
were shouting and gesticulating on all sides as we rode up — 
some leading the camels to kneel and drink, some holding the 
water-skins, and others brandishing their spears and swords in 
angry contention. Under the hot sun, on the sandy plain, it 
was a picture truly mid- African in all its features. The water 
had an insipid, brackish taste, and I was very glad that I had 
prevented my Arabs from drinking all we had brought from 
the porphyry fountain of Djeekdud We watered our camels, 
however, which detained us long enough to see a fight be- 
tween two of the Kababish guides. There were so many 
persons to interfere that neither could injure the other, but 
the whole group of actors and sympathizers, struggling on 



418 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the brink of the well, came near being precipitated to tha 
bottom. 

Our road now turned to the north, through a gap in the 
low hills and over a tract of burnt, barren, rolling wastes of 
white sand and gravel Towards evening we came again to 
the river-bed, here broad.and shallow. This part of the Desert 
is inhabited by the Saurat and Huni tribes, and we saw large 
■ herds of sheep and goats wherever the halfeh grass abounded. 
At sunset there were no signs of the Nile, so I had the tent 
pitched in the middle of the dry river-channel. In front of 
us, on a low mound, the red walls of a ruined' building shone 
in the last rays of the sun. 

The next day — the eighth since leaving El Metemma — was 
intensely hot and sultry, without a breath of air stirring. 
While walking towards the ruins, I came upon two herds of 
gazelles, so tame that I approached within thirty yards, and 
could plainly see the expression of surprise and curiosity in 
their dark eyes. When I came too near, they would bleat like 
lambs, bound away a little distance and then stop again. The 
building, which stood on the stony slope of a hill, was sur- 
rounded with loose walls, in a dilapidated condition. The 
foundation, rising about six feet above the earth, is stone, 
above which the walls are of brick, covered with a thin coating 
of cement. The building is about eighty feet in length by 
forty in breadth, but the walls which remain are not more than 
twenty feet high. It is believed to have been an ancient Cop- 
tic monastery, and probably dates from the earlier ages of 
Christianity. The ruins of other houses, built of loose stones, 
surround the principal edifice, which was undoubtedly a church, 
and the ground around is strewn with fragments of burnt brick 



DISTANT VIEW OF TILE NILE. 419 

and pottery. There is a churchyard near at hand, with 
tombstones which contain inscriptions both in Greek and 
Coptic. 

"We rode slowly down the broad river-bed, which gradually 
widened, and after two or three hours saw far in advance a line 
of red, glowing sand-hills, which I knew could not be on the 
southern side of the Nile. Still we went on, under the clear, 
hot sky, the valley widening into a plain the while, and I 
sought anxiously for some sign that the weary Desert was 
crossed. Finally, I saw, above the endless clusters of thorns, 
a line of darker, richer green, far away in the burning distance, 
and knew it to be a grove of date-palms — the glorious signal 
of the Nile. This put new life into me, and thenceforth I felt 
the scorching heat no longer. To the north, beyond the 
palms, appeared an isolated mountain of singular form — the 
summit being flat and the sides almost perpendicular. It must 
be Djebel Berkel, I thought, and I told Mohammed so, but he 
said it was not. Just then, I saw an Arab herdsman among 
the thorns and called out to him to know the name of the 
mountain. " Djebel Berkel," said he. He then accosted Mo- 
hammed : " Where are you going ?" " To Merawe." " Are 
you the guide ? " he again inquired, bursting into a loud laugh. 
" You are a fine guide; there is Merawe !" pointing in a di- 
rection very different from that we were going. This complet- 
ed the old fellow's discomfiture. We were still five or six 
miles distant from the river and took a random path over the 
plain, in the direction indicated by the herdsman. The palms 
rose higher and showed a richer foliage ; mud walls appeared 
in their shade, and a tall minaret on the opposite bank of tha 
river pointed out the location of the town. I rode down out 



# 

420 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of the drear, hot sand — the sea where I had been drifting for 
seven wearisome days — to the little village of Abdom, embow- 
ered in a paradise of green ; palms above, dazzling wheat-fields, 
dark cotton-fields and blossoming beans below. A blessed 
resting-place ! 







^ 




OUR WHEREABOUTS. 



421 




v 




; l " i,: '-" : '' iJ " i! ;^fii'!Hiil f:: figr 

lliattHMIIMlWllllltlllllll 



Shekh Abd e'-DjebaL 



CHAPTER XXXIII, 



THREE DAY 



AT NAPATA. 



Our whereabouts— Shekh Mohammed Abd e'-Djebal— My residence at Abdom— Cross 
ing the River — A Superb Landscape — The Town of Merawe — Ride to Djebel Berkel 
— The Temples of Napata — Ascent of the Mountain — Ethiopian Panorama — Lost 
and Found — Tho Pyramids — The Governor of Merawe — A Scene in the Divan — 
The Shekh and I— The Governor Dines with me— Ruins of the City of Napata— 
A Talk about Religions— Engaging Camels for Wadi-Halfa — The Shekh's Parting 
Blessing; 

"Under the palm-trees by the river's side." — Keats. 

Abdom, tlie friendly haven into which I had drifted after an 
eight days' voyage in the fiery sea of the Desert, is a village 
on the eastern hank of the Nile, which, after passing Ahou- 
Hammed, flows to the south-west and south until > , 7 caches 



422 JOURNE? TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the frontier of Dongola. On the opposite bank is Merawe, the 
former capital of Dar Shygheea, which must not be confounded 
with the ancient Meroe, the ruins of which, near Shendy, I 
have already described. True, the identity of the names a* 
first deceived antiquarians, who supposed the temples and pyra- 
mids in this neighborhood to have belonged to the capital of 
the old Hierarchy of Meroe ; but it is now satisfactorily estab- 
lished that they mark the site of Napata, the capital of Ethio- 
pia up to the time of the Caesars. It was the limit of the cele- 
brated expedition of the Roman soldiers, under Petronius. 
Djebel Berkel, at whose base the principal remains are found, 
is in lat. 18° 3 5', or thereabouts. 

I was welcomed to Abdom by the Shekh or holy man of 
the place, who met me on the verge of the Desert, and con- 
ducted me to the best of his two houses. Shekh Mohammed, 
Abd e'-Djebal (Mohammed, the Slave of the Mountains), was a 
dignified old man of sixty, with a gray beard and brown com- 
plexion, and was the owner of a water-mill, several fields of 
wheat and cotton, and an abundance of palm-trees. He had 
two wives, each of whom, with her family, occupied a separate 
house — a great mark of discretion on the part of Mohammed. 
Domestic quiet was thus secured to him, while he possessed 
that in which the Arab most glories and rejoices — a numerous 
family of children. His youngest wife, a woman of thirty, 
immediately vacated the house on my arrival, and took up her 
temporary residence in a tent of palm-matting, with her four 
children. The dwelling into which I was ushered was a 
square structure of clay, one story high, with one door and no 
windows. It had a flat roof of palm logs, covered with thatch, 
and the inside walls were hung with large mats, plaited with 



MY RESIDENCE AT ABDOM. 42C 

brilliantly-colored palm blades. Fancy vessels of baked clay, 
baskets, ostrich eggs, and other ornaments were suspended 
from the roof in slings of palm fibre, and a very large white 
mat covered half the floor. Here my bed was laid, and my 
camp-stool, placed in front of it, formed a table. The Shekh, 
who was with me nearly all the time of my stay, sat on the 
floor in front of me, and never entered or departed from the 
house, without saying " Bismillahi" ("in the name of G-od"), 
as he crossed the threshold. Outside of the door was a broad 
divan, running along the north side of the house. It therefore 
pointed towards Mecca and was a most agreeable praying-place 
for the holy man. On my arrival, after first having taken a 
bath in the Nile, I sat there the rest of the day, tasting the 
luxury of coolness and shade, and steeping my eyes in the balm 
of refreshing colors. A clump of some twenty date-trees grew 
in front of the door, throwing over us a gorgeous canopy of 
leaves. Fields of wheat in head, waist-deep, surrounded the 
house, insulating it in a sea of greenness, over which I saw the 
hills of the Desert, no longer terrible, but soft and fair and 
far as clouds smouldering in the roseate fires of an Eastern 
sunrise. 

Very early the next morning the Shekh and his sons and 
their asses were in readiness to accompany me to Djebel Berkel. 
We walked down between the Shekh's gardens to the Nile, 
where the ferry-boat was waiting to convey us across. I was 
enchanted with the picture which the shores presented. The 
air was filled with a light, silvery vapor (a characteristic of 
sultry weather in Africa), softening the deep, rich color of the 
landscape. The eastern bank was one bower of palms, stand- 
ing motionless, in perfect groups, above the long, sloping banks 



424 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

of beans in blossom. Such grace and glory, such silence and 
repose, I thought I had never before seen in the vegetable 
world. Opposite, the ruined palaces of the old Shyglieean 
Kings and the mud and stone hovels of modern Merawe rose 
in picturesque piles above the river bank and below the red 
sandstone bluffs of the Nubian Desert, which overhung them 
and poured the sand through deep rents and fissures upon their 
very roofs. The mosque, with a tall, circular minaret, stood 
embowered in a garden of date-palms, under one of the highest 
bluffs. Up the river, which stretched glittering into the dis- 
tance, the forest of trees shut out the view of the Desert, ex- 
cept Djebel Berkel, which stood high and grand above them, 
the morning painting its surface with red lights and purple 
shadows. Over the misty horizon of the river rose a single 
conical peak, far away. The sky was a pale, sleepy blue, and 
all that I saw seemed beautiful dream-pictures — every where 
grace, beauty, splendor of coloring, steeped in Elysian repose. 
It is impossible to describe the glory of that passage across the 
river. It paid me for all the hardships of the Desert. 

When we touched the other shore and mounted the little 
donkeys we had taken across with us, the ideal character of 
the scene disappeared, but left a reality picturesque and poetic 
enough. The beasts were without bridles, and were only fur- 
nished with small wooden saddles, without girths or stirrups. 
One was obliged to keep his poise, and leave the rest to the 
donkey, who, however, suffered himself to be guided by strik- 
ing the side of his neck. We rode under a cluster of ruined 
stone buildings, one of which occupied considerable space, ris- 
ing pylon-like, to the height of thirty feet. The Shekh in- 
formed me that it had been the palace of a Shygheean king, be- 



THE SCENERY OF MERAWE. 425 

fore the Turks got possession of the country. It was wholly 
dilapidated, but a few Arab families were living in the stona 
dwellings which surround it. These clusters of shattered 
buildings extend for more than a mile along the river, and ara 
all now known as Merawe. Our road led between fields of 
ripening wheat, rolling in green billows before the breeze, on 
one side, and on the other, not more than three yards distant, 
the naked sandstone walls of the Desert, where a blade of grass 
never grew. Over the wheat, along the bank of the Nile, rose 
a long forest of palms, so thickly ranged that the eye could 
scarcely penetrate their dense, cool shade ; while on the other 
hand the glaring sand-hills showed their burning shoulders 
above the bluffs. It was a most violent contrast, and yet, 
withal, there was a certain harmony in these opposite features. 
A remarkably fat man, riding on a donkey, met us. The 
Shekh compared him to a hippopotamus, and said that his fat 
came from eating mutton and drinking om bilbil day and night, 
At the end of the town we came to a sort of guard-house, 
shaded by two sycamores. A single soldier was in attendance, 
and apparently tired of having nothing to do, as he immediate- 
ly caught his donkey and rode with us to Djebel Berkel. 

We now approached the mountain, which is between three 
and four miles from the town. It rises from out the sands of 
the Nubian Desert, to the height of five hundred feet, present- 
ing a front completely perpendicular towards the river. It is 
inaccessible on all sides except the north, which in one place 
has an inclination of 45°. Its scarred and shattered walls of 
naked standstone stand up stern and sublime in the midst of 
the hot and languid landscape. As we approached, a group of 
pyramids appeared on the brow of a sand-hill to the left, and I 



426 JOURNEY TO CENTRA! AFRICA. 

discerned at the base of the mountain several isolated pillars, 
the stone-piles of ruined pylons, and other remains of temples. 
The first we reached was at the south-eastern corner of the 
mountain. Amid heaps of sandstone blocks and disjointed 
segments of pillars, five columns of an exceedingly old form 
still point out the court of a temple, whose adyta are hewn 
within in the mountain. They are not more than ten feet 
high and three in diameter, circular, and without capital or 
abacus, unless a larger block, rudely sculptured with the out- 
lines of a Typhon-head, may be considered as such. The 
doorway is hurled down and defaced, but the cartouches of 
kings may still be traced on the fragments. There are three 
chambers in the rock, the walls of which are covered with 
sculptures, for the most part representing the Egyptian divini- 
ties. The temple was probably dedicated to Typhon, or the 
Evil Principle, as one of the columns is still faced with a 
caryatid of the short, plump, big-mouthed and bat-eared figure, 
which elsewhere represents him. Over the entrance is the 
sacred winged globe, and the ceiling shows the marks of bril- 
liant coloring. The temple is not remarkable for its architec- 
ture, and can only be interesting in an "antiquarian point of 
view. It bears some resemblance in its general, style to the 
Temple-palace of G-oorneh, at Thebes. 

The eastern base of the mountain, which fronts the Nile, 
is strewn with hewn blocks, fragments of capitals, immense 
masses of dark bluish-gray granite, and other remains, which 
prove that a large and magnificent temple once stood there, 
The excavations made by Lepsius and others have uncovered 
the substructions sufficiently to show the general plan of two 
buildings. The main temple was at the north-eastern corner 



CLIMBING DJEBEL BERKEL. 427 

of the mountain, under the highest point of its perpendicular 
crags. The remains of its small propylons stand in advance, 
about two hundred yards from the rock, going towards which, 
you climb the mound formed by the ruins of a large pylon, at 
the foot of which are two colossal ram-headed sphinxes of blue 
granite, buried to their necks in the sand. Beyond this is a 
portico and pillared court, followed by other courts and laby- 
rinths of chambers. Several large blocks of granite, all more 
or less broken and defaced, lie on the surface or half quarried 
from the rubbish. They are very finely polished and contain 
figures of kings, evidently arranged in genealogical order, each 
accompanied with his name. The shekh had a great deal to 
tell me of the Franks, who dug up all the place, and set the 
people to work at hauling away the lions and rams, which they 
carried off in ships. I looked in vain for the celebrated pedes- 
tal ; it has probably become the spoil of Lepsius. 

While taking a sketch of the mountain from the eastern 
side, I found the heat almost insupportable. The shekh look- 
ed over my shoulder all the time, and at the end pronounced 
it temam — "perfect." I then proposed climbing the moun- 
tain, as he had said one could see the whole world from the 
top. He was bound to go with me wherever I went, but shrank 
from climbing El Berkel. It would require two hours, he 
said, to go up. After eating a slice of watermelon in the 
shade of one of the pillars, I took off my jacket and started 
alone, and very soon he was at my side, panting and sweating 
with the exertion. We began at the point most easy of ascent, 
vet found it toilsome enough. After passing the loose frag- 
ments which lie scattered around the base, we came upon a 
steep slope of sliding sand and stones, blown from the desert. 



428 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

We sank in this nearly to the knees, and slid backward at each 
step at least half as far as we had stepped forward. We were 
obliged to rest every three or four steps, and take breath, 
moistening the sand meanwhile with a rain of sweat-drops. 
" Surely there is no other mountain in the world so high as 
this," said the shekh, and I was ready to agree with him. At 
last we reached the top, a nearly level space of about ten acres. 
There was a pleasant breeze here, but the Ethiopian world 
below was dozing in an atmosphere of blue heat. There was 
too much vapor in the air to see the farthest objects distinctly, 
and the pyramids of Noori, further up the river, on its eastern 
bank, were not visible. The Nile lay curved in the middle of 
the picture like a flood of molten glass, on either side its 
palmy " knots of paradise," then the wheat fields, lying like 
slabs of emerald against the tawny sands, that rolled in hot 
drifts and waves and long ridgy swells to the horizon north and 
south, broken here and there by the jagged porphyry peaks. 
Before me, to the south-east, were the rugged hills of the 
Beyooda ; behind me, to the north and west, the burning wil- 
derness of the Great Nubian Desert. 

As I sought for my glass, to see the view more distinctly, 
I became aware that I had lost my pocket-book on the way up. 
As it contained some money and all my keys, I was not a 
little troubled, and mentioned my loss to Shekh Mohammed. 
We immediately returned in search of it, sliding down the 
sand and feeling with our hands and feet therein. We had 
made more than half the descent, and I began to consider the 
search hopeless, when the shekh, who was a little in advance, 
cried out : " Sidi ! God be praised ! God be praised ! " He 
saw the corner sticking out of the sand, took it up, kissed it. 



THE PYRAMIDS. 429 

and laid it on one eye, while lie knelt with his old head turned 
up, that I might take it off. I tied it securely in a corner of my 
6hawl and we slid to the bottom, where we found Achmet and 
the young shekhs in the shade of a huge projecting cliff, with 
breakfast spread out on the sand. 

It was now noon, and only the pyramids remained to be 
seen on that side of the river. The main group is about a 
third of a mile from the mountain, on the ridge of a sand-hill. 
There are six pyramids, nearly' entire, and the foundations of 
others. They are almost precisely similar to those of the real 
Meroe, each having a small exterior chamber on the eastern 
side. Like the latter, they are built of sandstone blocks, only 
filled at the corners, which are covered with a hem or mould- 
ing ; the sides of two of them are convex. On all of them the 
last eight or ten courses next the top have been smoothed to 
follow the slope of the side. It was no doubt intended to 
finish them all in this manner. One of them has also the cor- 
ner moulding rounded, so as to form a scroll, like that on the 
cornice of many of the Egyptian temples. They are not more 
than fifty feet in height, with very narrow bases. One of 
them, indeed, seems to be the connecting link between the 
pyramid and the obelisk. Nearer the river is an older pyra- 
mid, though no regular courses of stone are to be seen any 
longer. These sepulchral remains, however, are much inferior 
to those of Meroe. 

The oldest names found at Napata are those of Amenoph 
III. and Kemeses II. (1630 B. C. and 1400 B. C.) both of 
whom subjected Nubia to their rule. The remains of Ethi- 
opian art, however, go no further than King Tirkaka, 730 B. 
C. — the Ethiopian monarch, who, in the time of Hezekiah, 



430 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

inarched into Palestine to meet Sennacherib, King of Assyria. 
Napata, therefore, occupies an intermediate place in history, 
between Thebes and Meroe, showing the gradual southward 
progress of Egyptian art and civilization. It is a curious fact 
that the old religion of Egypt should have been here met face 
to face, and overthrown, by Christianity, which, starting in the 
mountains of Abyssinia, followed the course of the Nile north- 
ward. In the sixth century of our era, Ethiopia and Nubia 
were converted to Christianity and remained thus until the 
fourteenth century, when they fell beneath the sword of Islam. 

"We rode back to the town on our uneasy donkey saddles. 
As I wanted small money, the shekh proposed my calling on 
Achmedar Kashif, the Grovernor of Merawe and Ambiikol, and 
asking him to change me some medjids. We accordingly rode 
under the imposing stone piles of the old kings to the residence 
of the Kashif, a two-story mud house with a portico in front, 
covered with matting. It was the day for the people of the 
neighborhood to pay their tulheli, or tax, and some of his 
officers were seated on the ground in the shade, settling this 
business with a crowd of Arabs. I went up stairs to the 
divan, and found the Kashif rolling himself in his shawl for 
dinner, which his slaves had just brought up. He received 
me cordially, and I took my seat beside him on the floor and 
dipped my fingers into the various dishes. There was a pan 
of baked fish, which was excellent, after which came a tray of 
scarlet watermelon slices, coffee, pipes, and lastly a cup of hot 
sugar syrup. He readily promised to change me the money, 
and afterwards accepted my invitation to dinner. 

I stayed an hour longer, and had an opportunity of witness- 
ing some remarkable scenes. A woman came in to complain 



A SCENE IN THE DIVAN. 431 

of her husband, who had married another woman, leaving her 
with one child. She had a cow of her own, which he had 
forcibly taken and given to his new wife. The Kashif listen- 
ed to her story, and then detaching his seal from his button- 
hole, gave it to an attendant, as a summons which the delin- 
quent dare not disobey. A company of men afterwards came 
to adjust some dispute about a water-mill. They spoke so fast 
and in such a violent and excited manner, that I could not 
comprehend the nature of the quarrel; but the group they 
made was most remarkable. They leaned forward with flash- 
ing teeth and eyes, holding the folds of their long mantles with 
one hand, while they dashed and hurled the other in the air, 
in the violence of their contention. One would suppose that 
they must all perish the next instant by spontaneous combus- 
tion. The Kashif was calmness itself all the while, and after 
getting the particulars — a feat which I considered marvellous — 
quietly gave his decision. Some of the party protested against 
it, whereupon he listened attentively, but, finding no reason to 
change his judgment, repeated it. Still the Arabs screamed 
and gesticulated. He ejaculated imsliee ! (" get away ! ") in a 
thundering tone, dealt the nearest ones a vigorous blow with 
his fist, and speedily cleared the divan. The Kashif offered 
to engage camels and a guide for New Dongola, in case I chose 
to go by the Nubian Desert — a journey of three or four days, 
through a terrible waste of sand and rocks, without grass or 
water. The route being new, had some attractions, but I 
afterwards decided to adhere to my original plan of following 
the course of the river to Ambukol and Old Dongola. 

I made preparations for giving the Kashif a handsome 
dinner. I had mutton and fowls, and Achmet procured eggs, 



432 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA, 

milk and vegetables, and set his whole available force to work 
Meanwhile the shekh and I sat on the divan outside the door, 
and exchanged compliments. He sold me a sword from 
Bornou, which he had purchased from an Arab merchant who 
had worn it to Mecca. He told me he considered me as his 
two eyes, and would give me one of his sons, if I desired 
Then he rendered me an account of his family, occasionally 
pointing out the members thereof, as they passed to and fro 
among the palms. He asked me how many children I had, and 
I was obliged to confess myself wholly his inferior in this 
respect. " God grant," said he, " that when you go back to 
your own country, you may have many sons, just like that 
one," pointing to a naked Cupidon of four years old, of a rich 
chocolate-brown color. " God grant it," I was obliged to 
reply, conformably to the rules of Arab politeness, but I nien^ 
tally gave the words the significance of " God forbid it ! " 
The shekh, who was actually quite familiar with the ruins in 
Ethiopia, and an excellent guide to them, informed me that 
they were four thousand years old; that the country was at 
that time in possession of the English, but afterwards the 
Arabs drove them out. This corresponds with an idea very 
prevalent in Egypt, that the temples were built by the fore- 
fathers of the Frank travellers, who once lived there, and that 
is the reason why the Franks make a hadj, or pilgrimage to 
see them. I related to the shekh the history of the warlike 
Queen Candace, who once lived there, in her capital of Napata, 
and he was so much interested in the story that he wrote it 
down, transforming her name into Kandasiyeh. Some later 
traveller will be surprised to find a tradition of the aforesaid 
queen, no doubt with many grotesque embellishments, told him 
on the site of her capital. 



VISIT FEOM THE KASHIF. 433 

Dinner was ready at sunset, the appointed time, but the 
Kashif did not come. I waited one hour, two hours 5 still he 
came not. Thereupon I invited Achmet and the shekh, and 
we made an excellent dinner in Turkish style. It was just 
over, and I was stretched out without jacket or tarboosh, en- 
joying my pipe, when we heard the ferrymen singing on the 
river below, and soon afterwards the Kashif appeared at the 
door. He apologized, saying he had been occupied in his 
divan. I had dinner served again, and tasted the dishes to 
encourage him, but it appeared that he had not been able to 
keep his appetite so long, and had dined also. Still, he ate 
enough to satisfy me that he relished my dishes, and after- 
wards drank a sherbet of sugar and vinegar with great gusto. 
He had three or four attendants, and with him came a Berber 
merchant, who had lately been in Khartoum. I produced my 
sketch-book and maps, and astonished the company for three 
hours. I happened to have a book of Shaksperean views, 
which I had purchased in Stratford-on-Avon. The picture of 
Shakspere gave the Kashif and shekh great delight, and the 
former considered the hovel in which the poet was born, " very 
grand." The church in Stratford they thought a marvellous 
building, and the merchant confessed that it was greater than 
Lattif Pasha's palace in Khartoum, which he had supposed to 
be the finest building in the world. 

The next morning the shekh proposed going with me to 
the remains of a temple, half an hour distant, on the eastern 
bank of the river ; the place, he said, where the people found 
the little images, agates and scarabei, which they brought to 
me in great quantities. After walking a mile and a half over 
the sands, which have here crowded the vegetation to the very 
19 



434 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

water's edge, we came to a broad mound of stones, broken 
bricks and pottery, with, a foundation wall of heavy limestone 
blocks, along the western side. There were traces of doors 
and niches, and on the summit of the mound the pedestals of 
columns similar to those of El Berkel. From this place com- 
menced a waste of ruins, extending for nearly two miles to- 
wards the north-west, while the breadth, from east to west, 
was about equal. For the most part, the buildings were en- 
tirely concealed by the sand, which was filled with fragments 
of pottery and glass, and with shining pebbles of jasper, agate 
and chalcedony. Half a mile further, we struck on another 
mound, of greater extent, though the buildings were entirely 
level with the earth. The foundations of pillars were abun- 
dant, and fragments of circular limestone blocks lay crumbling 
to pieces in the rubbish. The most interesting object was a 
mutilated figure of blue granite, of which only a huge pair of 
wings could be recognized. The shekh said that all the Frank 
travellers who came there broke off a piece and carried it away 
with them. I did not follow their example. Towards the 
river were many remains of crude brick walls, and the ground 
was strewn with pieces of excellent hard-burnt bricks. The 
sand evidently conceals many interesting objects. I saw in 
one place, where it had fallen in, the entrance to a chamber, 
wholly below the surface. The Arabs were at work in various 
parts of the plain, digging up the sand, which they filled in 
baskets and carried away on donkeys. The shekh said it con- 
tained salt, and was very good to make wheat grow, whence I 
inferred that the earth is nitrous, We walked for an hour or 
two over the ruins, finding everywhere the evidence that a 
large capital had once stood on the spot. The bits of water- 



WE COMPARE RELIGIONS. 435 

jars which we picked up were frequently painted and glazed 
with much skill. The soil was in many places wholly compos- 
ed of the debris of the former dwellings. This was, without 
doubt, the ancient Napata, of which Djebel Berkel was only 
the necropolis. Napata must have been one of the greatest 
cities of Ancient Africa, after Thebes, Memphis and Carthage. 
I felt a peculiar interest in wandering over the site of that 
half-forgotten capital, whereof the ancient historians knew lit- 
tle more than we. That so little is said by them in relation to 
it is somewhat surprising, notwithstanding its distance from 
the Roman frontier. 

In the afternoon, Achmet, with great exertion, backed by 
all the influence of the Kashif, succeeded in obtaining ten pias- 
tres worth of bread. The latter sent me the shekh of the 
camels, who furnished me with three animals and three men, 
to Wadi Haifa, at ninety-five piastres apiece. They were to 
accompany my caravan to Ambukol, on the Congolese frontier, 
where the camels from Khartoum were to be discharged. I 
spent the rest of the day talking with the shekh on religious 
matters. He gave me the history of Christ, in return for 
which I related to him that of the Soul of Mahomet, from one 
hundred and ten thousand years before the Creation of the 
World, until his birth, according to the Arab Chronicles. 
This quite overcame him. He seized my hand and kissed it 
with fervor, acknowledging me as the more holy man of the 
two. He said he had read the Books of Moses, the Psalms of 
David and the Gospel of Christ, but liked David best, whose 
words flowed like the sound of the zumarra, or Arab flute. 
To illustrate it, he chanted one of the Psalms in a series of not 
unmusical cadences. He then undertook to repeat the ninety- 



436 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

attributes of God, and thought he succeeded, but I noticed 
that several of the epithets were repeated more than once. 

The north wind increased during the afternoon, and towards 
night blew a very gale. The sand came in through the door 
in such quantities that I was obliged to move my bed to a 
more sheltered part of my house. Numbers of huge black 
beetles, as hard and heavy as grape-shot, were dislodged from 
their holes and dropped around me with such loud raps that I 
was scarcely able to sleep. The sky was dull and dark, hardly 
a star to be seen, and the wind roared in the palms like a 
November gale let loose among the boughs of a Northern 
forest. It was a grand roar, drowning the sharp rustle of the 
leaves when lightly stirred, and rocked my fancies as glorious- 
ly as the pine. In another country than Africa, I should have 
predicted rain, hail, equinoctial storms, or something of the 
kind, but there I went to sleep with a positive certainty of 
sunshine on the morrow. 

I was up at dawn, and had breakfast by sunrise ; neverthe- 
less, we were obliged to wait a long while for the camels, or 
rather the pestiferous Kababish who went after them. The 
new men and camels were in readiness, as the camel-shekh 
came over the river to see that all was right. The Kashif sent 
me a fine black ram, as provision for the journey. Finally, 
towards eight o'clock, every thing was in order and my cara- 
van began to move. I felt real regret at leaving the pleasant 
spot, especially the beautiful bower of palms at the door of my 
house. When my effects had been taken out, the shekh called 
his eldest son Saad, his wife Fatiina, and their two young sons, 
to make their salaams. They all kissed my hand, and I then 
gave the old man and Saad my backsheesh for their services. 



the shekh's blessing. 437 

The shekh took the two gold medjids readily, without any 
hypocritical show of reluctance, and lifted my hand to his lips 
and forehead. When all was ready, he repeated the Fatha, 
or opening paragraph of the Koran, as each camel rose from 
its knees, in order to secure the blessing of Allah upon our 
journey. He then took me in his arms, kissed both my cheeks, 
and with tears in his eyes, stood showering pious phrases after 
me, till I was out of hearing. With no more vanity or self- 
ishness than is natural to an Arab, Shekh Mohammed Abd 
e'-Djebal had many excellent qualities, and there are few of 
my Central African acquaintances whom I would rather see 
again. 



458 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

OLD DONGOLA AND NEW DONGOLA. 

Appearance of the Country — Korti — The Town of Ambukol — The Caravan reorgan- 
ized — A Fiery Ride — "We reach Edabbe — An Illuminated Landscape — A Torment 
—Nubian Agriculture — Old Dongola — The Palace-Mosque of the Nubian Kings — A 
Panorama of Desolation — The Old City — Nubian Gratitude — Another Sand-Storm 
— A Dreary Journey— The Approach to Handak — A Houso of Doubtful Character — 
The Inmates — Journey to El Ordee (New Dongola) — Khoorshid Bey — Appearance 
of the Town. 

I left Abdom on the morning of February twentieth. Our 
road lay southward, along the edge of the wheat-fields, over 
whose waves we saw the island-like groups of palms at a little 
distance. For several miles the bank of the river was covered 
with a continuous string of villages. After skirting this glori- 
ous garden land for two hours, we crossed a sandy tract, over- 
grown with the poisonous euphorbia, to avoid a curve in the 
river. During the whole of the afternoon, we travelled along 
the edge of the cultivated land, and sometimes in the midst of 
it, obliging my camels to stumble clumsily over the raised 
trenches which carried water from the river to the distant parts 
of the fields. Large, ruined forts of unburnt brick, exceeding- 
ly picturesque at a distance, stood at intervals between the 
desert and the harvest-land. 



KORTI AND AMBUKOL. 439 

The next morning was hot and sultry, with not a breath of 
air stirring. I rose at dawn and walked ahead for two hours, 
through thickets of euphorbia higher than my head, and over 
patches of strong, dark-green grass. The salcias were groan- 
ing all along the shore, and the people every where at work in 
the fields. The wheat was in various stages of growth, from 
the first thick green of the young blades to the full head. 
Barley was turning a pale yellow, and the dookhn, the heads 
of which had already been gathered, stood brown and dry. 
Djebel Deeka, on my right, rose bold and fair above the lines 
of palms, and showed a picturesque glen winding in between 
its black-purple peaks. It was a fine feature of the landscape, 
which would have been almost too soft and lovely without it. 

Before nine o'clock we passed the large town of Korti, 
which, however, is rather a cluster of small towns, scattered 
along between the wheat-fields and the river. Some of the 
houses were large and massive, . and with their blank walls 
and block-like groups, over which the doum-tree spread its 
arch and the date-palm hung its feathery crown, made fine 
African pictures — admirable types of the scenery along the 
Nubian Nile. Beyond the town we came upon a hot, dusty 
plain, sprinkled with stunted euphorbia, over which I could see 
the point where the Nile turns westward. Towards noon we 
reached the town of Ambukol, which I found to be a large 
agglomeration of mud and human beings, on the sand-hills, a 
quarter of a mile from the river. An extensive pile of mud in 
the centre denoted a fortress or government station of some 
sort. There were a few lazy Arabs sitting on the ground, on 
the shady side of the walls, and some women going back and 
forth with water-jars, but otherwise, for all the life it present- 



440 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ed, the place might have been deserted. The people we met 
saluted me with much respect, and those who were seated rose 
and remained standing until I had passed. I did not enter 
the town, but made direct for a great acacia tree near its west- 
ern end. The nine camels and nine men of my caravan all 
rested under the shade, and there was room for as many more. 
A number of Arabs looked on from a distance, or hailed my 
camel-men, to satisfy their curiosity regarding me, but no one 
came near or annoyed us in any way. I took breakfast leisure- 
ly on my carpet, drank half a gourd of mareesa, and had still 
an hour to wait, before the new camels were laden. The 
Kababish, who had accompanied me from Khartoum, wanted a 
certificate, so I certified that Said was a good camel-man and 
Mohammed worthless as a guide. They then drank a parting 
jar of mareesa, and we went from under the cool acacia into 
the glare of the fierce sun. Our road all the afternoon was 
in the Desert, and we were obliged to endure a most intense 
and sultry heat. • 

The next day I travelled westward over long alcabas, or 
reaches of the Desert, covered with clumps of thorns, nebbuk 
and the jasmine tree. The long mountain on the opposite 
bank was painted in rosy light against the sky, as if touched 
with the beams of a perpetual sunrise. My eyes always turn- 
ed to it with a sense of refreshment, after the weary glare of 
the sand. In the morning there was a brisk wind from the 
north-east, but towards noon it veered to the south-west, and 
then to the south, continuing to blow all day with great 
force. As I rode westward through the hot hours of the 
afternoon, it played against my face like a sheet of flame. 
The sky became obscured with a dull, bluish haze, and 



A FIERY RIDE. 441 

the sands of the Beyooda, on my left, glimmered white and 
dim, as if swept by the blast of a furnace. There were occa- 
sional gusts that made the flesh shrink as if touched with a hot 
iron, and I found it impossible to bear the wind full on my 
face. One who has never felt it, cannot conceive the withering 
effect of such a heat. The earth seems swept with the first 
fires of that conflagration beneath which the heavens will 
shrivel up as a scroll, and you instinctively wonder to see the 
palms standing green and unsinged. My camel-men crept 
behind the camels to get away from it, and Achmet and Ali 
muffled up their faces completely. I could not endure the 
sultry heat occasioned by such a preparation, and so rode all 
day with my head in the fire. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon we approached the 
Nile again. There was a grove of sont and doum-trees on the 
bank, surrounding a large quadrangular structure of clay, with 
square towers at the corners. Grave-yards stretched for nearly 
a mile along the edge of the Desert, and sis large, dome-like 
heaps of clay denoted the tombs of as many holy men. We 
next came upon the ruins of a large village, with a fort and a 
heavy palace-like building of mud. Before reaching Edabbe, 
the terminus of the caravan route from Kordofan, the same 
evening, I rode completely around the bend of the Nile, so 
that my dromedary's head was at last turned towards "Wadi 
Haifa. I was hot, tired, and out of temper, but a gourd of cool 
water, at the first house we reached, made all right again. 
There were seven vessels in the river, waiting for the caravans. 
One had just arrived from Kordofan, and the packages of gum 
were piled up along the shore. We were immediately followed 

by the sailors, who were anxious that I should hire their ves- 

19* 



442 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sels. I rode past the town, which does not contain more 
than thirty houses in all, and had my tent pitched on the river 
bank. 

The Nile is here half a mile broad, and a long reach of his 
current is visible to the north and south. The opposite bank 
was high and steep, lined at the water's edge with a belt of 
beans and lupins, behind which rose a line of palms, and still, 
higher the hills of pale, golden-hued sand, spotted like a leop- 
ard's hide, with clumps of a small mimosa. The ground was a 
clear, tawny yellow, but the spots were deep emerald. Below 
the gorgeous drapery of these hills, the river glittered in a 
dark, purple-blue sheet. The coloring of the mid- African land- 
scapes is truly unparalleled. To me, it became more than a 
simple sense; it grew to be an appetite. When, after a jour- 
ney in the Desert, I again beheld the dazzling green palms and 
wheat-fields of the Nile, I imagined that there was a positive 
sensation on the retina. I felt, or seemed to feel, physically, 
the colored rays — beams of pure emerald, topaz and amethys- 
tine lustre — as they struck the eye. 

At Edabbe I first made acquaintance with a terrible pest, 
which for many days afterwards occasioned me much torment — 
a small black fly, as venomous as the musquito, and much 
more difficult to drive away. I sat during the evening with 
my head, neck and ears closely bound up, notwithstanding the 
heat. After the flies left, a multitude of beetles, moths, wing- 
ed ants and other nameless creatures came in their place. I 
sat and sweltered, murmuring for the waters of Abana and 
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, and longing for a glass of sherbet 
cooled with the snows of Lebanon. 

We were up with the first glimmering of dawn. The sky 



THE COUNTRY OF D'ONGOLA. 443 

was dull and hazy, and the sun came up like a shield of rusty 
copper, as we started. Our path lay through the midst of 
the cultivated land, sometimes skirting the banks of the 
Nile, and sometimes swerving off to the belts of sont and 
euphorbia which shut out the sand. The sakias, turned by 
a yoke of oxen each, were in motion on the river, and the 
men were wading through the squares of wheat, cotton and 
barley, turning the water into them. All farming processes, 
from sowing to reaping, were going on at the same time. The 
cultivated land was frequently more than a mile in breadth, 
and all watered from the river. The sakias are taxed four 
hundred and seventy-five piastres each, notwithstanding the 
sum fixed by Government is only three hundred. The remain- 
der goes into the private treasuries of the Governors. For this 
reason, many persons, unable to pay the tax, emigrate into 
Kordofan and elsewhere. This may account for the frequent 
tracts of the finest soil which are abandoned. I passed many 
fine fields, given up to the halfeh grass, which grew most rank 
and abundant. My dromedary had a rare time of it, cropping 
the juicy bunches as he went along. The country is thickly 
settled, and our road was animated with natives, passing back 
and forth. 

About noon, we saw in advance, on the eastern bank of 
the Nile, a bold, bluff ridge, crowned with a large square 
building. This the people pointed out to us as the location 
of Old Dongola. As we approached nearer, a long line of 
mud buildings appeared along the brow of the hill, whose 
northern slope was cumbered with ruins. We left the cara- 
van track and rode down to the ferry place at the river, over a 
long stretch of abandoned fields, where the cotton was almost 



444 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

choked out with grass, and the beans and lentils were growing 
wild in bunches. After my tent had been pitched in a cotton- 
patch, I took a grateful bath in the river, and then crossed in 
the ferry-boat to the old town. The hill upon which it is 
built terminates abruptly in a precipice of red sandstone rock, 
about a hundred feet in height. Four enormous fragments 
have been broken off, and lie as they fell, on the edge of the 
water. A steep path through drifts of sliding yellow sand 
leads around the cliffs, up to the dwellings. I found the 
ascent laborious, as the wind, which had veered to the west, 
was as hot as on the previous day ; but a boatman and one of 
my camel-men seized a hand each and hauled me up most con- 
veniently. At the summit, all was ruin; interminable lines 
of walls broken down, and streets filled up with sand. I went 
first to the Kasr, or Palace, which stands on the highest part 
of the hill. It is about forty feet in height, having two stories 
and a broad foundation wall, and is built mostly of burnt 
brick and sandstone. It is the palace of the former Congolese 
Kings, and a more imposing building than one would expect 
to find in such a place. Near the entrance is an arched pas- 
sage, leading down to some subterranean, chambers, which I 
did not explore. It needed something more than the assu- 
rance of an old Nubian, however, to convince me that there was 
an underground passage from this place to Djebel Berkel. A 
broad flight of stone steps ascended to the second story, in 
which are many chambers and passages. The walls are cover- 
ed with Arabic inscriptions, written in the plaster while it was 
yet moist. The hall of audience had once a pavement of 
marble, several blocks of which still remain, and the ceiling is 
supported in the centre by three shafts of granite, taken from 



THE RUINS OF OLD DONGOLA. 445 

some old Egyptian ruin. The floors are covered with tiles of 
burnt brick, but the palm-logs which support them have given 
away in many places, rendering one's footing insecure. Be- 
hind the hall of audience is a passage, with a niche, in each 
side of which is also an ancient pillar of granite. From the 
tenor of one of the Arabic inscriptions, it appears that the 
building was originally designed for a mosque, and that it was 
erected in the year 1317, by Saf-ed-deen Abdallah, after a 
victory over the infidels. 

I ascended to the roof of the palace, which is flat and paved 
with stones. The view was most remarkable. The height 
on which Old Dongola is built, falls off on all sides, inland as 
well as towards the river, so that to the east one overlooks a 
wide extent of desert — low hills of red sand, stretching away 
to a dim, hot horizon. To the north, the hill slopes gradually 
to the Nile, covered with the ruins of old buildings. North- 
east, hardly visible through the sandy haze, rose a high, isolat- 
ed peak, with something like a tower on its summit. To the 
south and east the dilapidated city covered the top of the hill 
— a mass of ashy-gray walls of mud and stone, for the most 
part roofless and broken down, while the doors, courts and 
alleys between them were half choked up with the loose sand 
blown in from the Desert. The graveyards of the former in- 
habitants extended for more than a mile through the sand, 
over the dreary hills behind the town. Among them were a 
great number of conical, pointed structures of clay and stones, 
from twenty to thirty feet in height. The camel-men said 
they were the tombs of rossool — prophets, or holy men. I 
counted twenty-five in that portion of the cemetery which was 
risible. The whole view was one of entire and absolute deso- 



446 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA, 

lation, heightened the more by the clouds of sand which filled 
the air, and which, in their withering heat, seemed to be rain- 
ing ruin upon the land. 

I afterwards walked through the city, and was surprised to 
find many large, strong houses of stone and burnt brick, with 
spacious rooms, the walls of which were plastered and white- 
washed. The lintels of the doors and windows were stone, 
the roofs in many places, where they still remained, covered 
with tiles, and every thing gave evidence of a rich and power- 
ful city. Now, probably not more than one-fifth Of the houses 
are inhabited. Here and there the people have spread a roof- 
ing of mats over the open walls, and nestled themselves in the 
sand. I saw several such places, the doors, or rather entrances 
to which, were at the bottom of loose sand-hills that constantly 
slid down and filled the dingy dwellings. In my walk I met 
but one or two persons, but as we returned again to the river, 
I saw a group of Dongolese women on the highest part of the 
cliff. They were calling in shrill tones and waving their hands 
to some persons in the ferry-boat on the river below, and need- 
ed no fancy to represent the daughters of Old Bongola la- 
menting over its fall. 

Some Dongolese djellahidt, or merchants, just returned 
from Kordofan, were in the ferry-boat. One of them showed 
me a snuff-box which he had bought from a native of Fertit, 
beyond Dar-Fur. It was formed of the shell of some fruit, 
with a silver neck attached. By striking the head of the box 
on the thumb-nail, exactly one pinch was produced. The rais 
took off his mantle, tied one end of it to the ring in the bow, 
and stood thereon, holding the other end with both hands 
stretched above his head. He made a fine bronze figure-head 



NUBIAN GRATITUDE. 447 

for the boat, and it was easy to divine her name : The Nu* 
Han. We had on board a number of copper-hned women, 
whose eyelids were stained with Icohl, which gave them a 
ghastly appearance. 

Soon after my tent had been pitched, in the afternoon, a 
man came riding up from the river on a donkey, leading a 
horse behind him. He had just crossed one of the water- 
sourses on his donkey, and was riding on, holding the horse's 
rope in his hand, when the animal started back at the water- 
course, jerking the man over the donkey's tail and throwing 
him violently on the ground. He lay as if dead for a quarter 
of an hour, but Achmet finally brought him to consciousness 
by pouring the contents of a leathern water-flask over his head, 
and raising him to a sitting posture. His brother, who had 
marge of a sakia on the bank, brought me an angareb in the 
evening, in acknowledgment of this good office. It is a good 
trait in the people, that they are always grateful for kindness. 
The angareb, however, did not prove of much service, for I 
was so beset by the black gnats that it was impossible to sleep. 
They assailed my nose, mouth, ears and eyes in such numbers 
that I was almost driven mad. I rubbed my face with strong 
vinegar, but it only seemed to attract them the more. I un- 
wound my turban, and rolled it around my neck and ears, but 
they crept under the folds and buzzed and bit until I was 
forced to give up the attempt. 

Our road, the next morning, lay near the river, through 
tracks of thick halfeh, four or five feet high. "We constantly 
passed the ruins of villages and the naked frames of abandon- 
ed sakias. The soil was exceedingly rich, as the exuberant 
growth of halfeh proved, but for miles and miles there was no 



448 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

sign of life. The tyranny of the Turks has depopulated ono 
of the fairest districts of Nuhia. The wind blew violently 
from the north, and the sandy haze and gray vapor in the air 
became so dense that I could scarcely distinguish the opposite 
bank of the Nile. The river was covered with white caps, and 
broke on the beach below with a wintry roar. As we journey- 
ed along through the wild green grass and orchards of sont, 
passing broken walls and the traces of old water-courses, I 
could have believed myself travelling through some deserted 
landscape of the North. I was chilled with the strong wind, 
which roared in the sont and made my beard whistle under 
my nose like a wisp of dry grass. Several ships passed us, 
scudding up stream under bare poles, and one, which had a 
single reef shaken out of her large sail, dashed by like a high- 
pressure steamer. 

After two or three hours we passed out of this region. 
The Desert extended almost to the water's edge, and we had 
nothing but sand and thorns. The wind by this time was 
more furious than ever, and the air was so full of sand that we 
could not see more than a hundred yards on either hand. The 
sun gave out a white, ghastly light, which increased the drear- 
iness of the day. All trace of the road was obliterated, and 
we could only travel at random among the thorns, following 
the course of the Nile, which we were careful to keep in view. 
My eyes, ears, and nostrils were soon filled with sand, and I 
was obliged to bind my turban so as nearly to cover my face, 
leaving only space enough to take a blind view of the way we 
were going. At breakfast time, after two hours of this mar- 
tyrdom, I found a clump of thorns so thick as to shut off the 
wind, but no sooner had I dismounted and crept under its 



ANOTHER SAND-STORM. 449 

shelter than I experienced a scorching heat from the sun, and 
was attached by myriads of the black gnats. I managed to 
eat something in a mad sort of way, beating my face and ears 
continually, and was glad to thrust my head again into the 
sand-storm, which drove off the worse pests. So for hours we 
pursued our journey. I could not look in the face of the wind, 
which never once fell. The others suffered equally, and two 
of the camel-men lagged so, that we lost sight of them entire- 
ly. It was truly a good fortune that I did not take the short 
road, east of the Nile, from Merawe to New Dongola. In the 
terrible wastes of the Nubian Desert, we could scarcely have 
survived such a storm. 

Nearly all the afternoon we passed over deserted tracts, 
which were once covered with flourishing fields. The water- 
courses extend for nearly two miles from the river, and cross 
the road at intervals of fifty yards. But now the villages are 
level with the earth, and the sand whistles over the traces of 
fields and gardens, which it has not yet effaced. Two hours 
before sunset the sun disappeared, and I began to long for the 
town of Handak, our destination. Achmet and I were ahead, 
and the other camels were not to be seen any longer, so as sun- 
set came on I grew restless and uneasy. The palms by this 
time had appeared again on the river's brink, and there was a 
village on our left, in the sand. We asked again for Handak. 
" Just at the corner of yon palms," said the people. They 
spoke with a near emphasis, which encouraged me. The Ara- 
bic dialect of Central Africa has one curious characteristic, 
which evidently springs from the want of a copious vocabulary. 
Degree, or intensity of meaning is usually indicated by accent 
alone. Thus, when they point to an object near at hand they 



450 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

say: henak, "there;" if it is a moderate distance off, they 
lengthen the sound into " Jien-a-a-ak ;" while, if it is so far as 
to be barely visible, the last syllable is sustained with a full 
breath — " hen-a-a-a-a-a-ak ! " In the same way, saci signifies 
" an hour ;" sa-a-a-a, " two hours," &c. This habit of speech 
gives the language a very singular and eccentric character. 

"We pushed on till the spot was reached, but as far ahead 
as the sand would permit us to see, could discern no house. 
We asked again ; the town commenced at the next corner of 
the palms ahead of us. I think this thing must have happen- 
ed to us five or six times, till at last I got into that peculiarly 
amiable mood which sees nothing good in Heaven or Earth. 
If my best friend had come to meet me, I should have given 
him but a sour greeting. My eyes were blinded, my head 
dull and stupid, and my bones sore from twelve hours in the 
saddle. As it grew dark, we were overtaken by four riders 
mounted on fine dromedaries. They were going at a sweeping 
trot, and our beasts were ambitious enough to keep pace with 
them for some time. One of them was a stately shekh, with 
a white robe and broad gold border and fringe. From what 
the people said of him, I took him to be the Melek, or King 
of Dongola. 

Meanwhile, it was growing dark. We could see nothing 
of the town, though a woman who had been walking beside us, 
said we were there already. She said she had a fine house, 
which we could have for the night, since it was almost impos- 
sible for a tent to stand in such a wind. As I had already 
dipped into the night, I determined to reach Handak at all 
hazards, and after yet another hour, succeeded. Achmet and 
I dismounted in a ruined court-yard, and while I sat on a 



MY LODGING IN HANDAK. 451 

broken wall, holding the camels, he went to look for our men. 
It was a dismal place, in the gathering darkness, with the 
wind howling and the sand drifting on all sides, and I wonder- 
ed what fiend had ever tempted me to travel in Africa. Be- 
fore long the woman appeared and guided us to a collection of 
miserable huts on the top of the hill. Her fine house proved 
to be a narrow, mud-walled room, with a roof of smoked dour- 
ra-stalks. It shut off the wind, however, and when I entered 
and found the occupants (two other women), talking to each 
other by the light of a pile of blazing corn-stalks, it looked ab- 
solutely cheerful. I stretched myself out on one of the anga- 
rebs, and soon relapsed into a better humor. But I am afraid 
we were not lodged in the most respectable house of Handak, 
for the women showed no disposition to leave, when we made 
preparations for sleeping. They paid no attention to my re- 
quests, escept by some words of endearment, which, from such 
creatures, were sufficiently disgusting, and I was obliged to 
threaten them with forcible ejection, before they vacated the 
house. The camel-men informed me that the place is noto- 
rious for its harlotry. 

As we had made a forced march of forty miles in one day, 
I gave the caravan a rest until noon, and treated the men to 
mutton and mareesa. Prices had already increased, since 
leaving Soudan, and I could not procure a sheep for less than 
seventeen piastres. The women, who had returned at sunrise, 
begged me to give them the entrails, which they cut into pieces 
and ate raw, with the addition of some onions and salt. The 
old woman told me a piteous tale of the death of her son, and 
her own distress, and how King Dyaab (who had passed 
through Handak the day previous, on his way to Dar El-Ma- 



452 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hass) had given her two piastres, and she hoped I would also 
give her something, that she might buy a new dress. I gave 
her the same as King Dyaab, which she at once asked me to 
take back again, as she expected at least nine piastres. See- 
ing I was about to take her at her word, she made haste to se- 
cure the money. Her youngest daughter, a bold, masculine 
thing, with hair cut close to her head, now came to me for 
backsheesh. " Oh !" said I, " you are going to do as the old 
woman did, are you?" " No," she exclaimed; "if you will 
give me two piastres, I will ask for no more. The old woman 
is a miserable wretch ! " and she spat upon the ground to show 
her disgust. " Glo ! " I said ; " I shall give nothing to a girl 
who insults her mother." 

From Handak to El Ordee is two days' journey. The 
country presents the same aspect of desertion and ruin as that 
in the neighborhood of Old Dongola. Untenanted villages 
line the road during nearly the whole distance. The face of 
the country is level, and there is no mountain to be seen on 
either bank of the Nile. It is a melancholy, deserted re- 
gion, showing only palms growing wildly and rankly along the 
river, fields covered with halfeh, water-courses broken down, 
sakias dismantled, and everywhere dwellings in ruin. Here 
and there a few inhabitants still lingered, tending their fields 
of stunted cotton, or watering some patches of green wheat. 
The general aspect of desolation was heightened by the strong 
north-wind, which filled the air with clouds of sand, making 
the sunshine so cold and white, that all the color faded out of 
the landscape. The palms were dull and dark, and the sand- 
hills beyond the Nile a dead, lifeless yellow. All this district 
swarms with black gnats, which seemed to have been sent as a 



APPROACH TO EL, ORDEE. 453 

curse upon its desertion, for they never appeared where the 
country was thickly inhabited and all the soil cultivated. 

On the first clay after leaving Handak, we passed the vil- 
lages of Kiar, Sori and Urub, and stopped at a place called 
Tetti. The wind blew so violently during the night that every 
thing in my tent, my head included, was thickly covered with 
dust. The next day we passed a large town called Hannak. 
The greater part of it was levelled to the earth, and evidently 
by violence, for the walls were of stone. It stood on a rocky 
rise, near the river, and had on its highest part the remains of 
some defences, and a small palace, in tolerable preservation. 
The hills behind were covered for half a mile with the graves 
of the former inhabitants, among which I noticed the cones 
and pyramids of several holy men. As we approached El Or- 
dee (by which name New Dongola is usually called), the ap 
pearance of the country improved, although there was still as 
much deserted as cultivated land. The people we met were 
partly Dongolese and partly Arabs from the Desert, the latter 
with bushy hair, shining with grease, and spears in their 
hands. They cheered us with the news that El Ordee was not 
distant, and we would arrive there at asser — the time of after- 
noon prayer, two hours before sunset. My camel-men rejoiced 
at the prospect of again having mareesa to drink, and I asked 
old Mohammed if he supposed the saints drank mareesa in 
Paradise. "Why!" he joyfully exclaimed; "do you know 
about Paradise ?" " Certainly ;" said I, " if you lead a good 
life, you will go straight there, but if you are wicked, Eblis 
will carry you down into the flames." " "Wallah ! " said the 
old fellow, aside to Achmet ; " but this is a good Frank. He 
certainly has Islam in his heart." 



454 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

About two o'clock, we descried the minaret of El Ordee, 
its sugar-loaf top glittering white in the sun. The place was 
three or four miles distant, and we did not reach it until after 
more than an hour's travel. As we approached, it presented 
the usual appearance of the Nubian towns — a long line of 
blank mud walls, above which rise, perhaps, the second stories 
of a few more ambitious mud houses ; here a sycamore, there 
a palm or two, denoting a garden within ; a wide waste of sand 
round about, some filthy people basking in the sun, and a mul- 
titude of the vilest kind of dogs. Near the river there are 
some fine large gardens, as in Khartoum. I had already de- 
cided to stop two days, to rest my caravan, before commenc- 
ing the long and toilsome march to Wadi-Halfa, but instead 
of hiring a house I went around the town and pitched my tent 
on the northern side, on a sandy plain, where I secured pure 
air and freedom from molestation by the inhabitants. 

The morning after my arrival, the Governor, Khoorshid 
Bey, called at my tent, and I returned the visit in the after- 
noon. He was a stout, fair-skinned and brown-bearded man 
of thirty-eight, and looked more like an American than a Turk. 
I found him in the shop of a Turkish merchant, opposite the 
door of the mosque, which is built in the centre of the bazaar. 
Two soldiers were in attendance, and brought me coffee and 
sherbet. The Bey was particularly anxious to know whether 
the railroad from Alexandria to Cairo would be built, and 
how much it would cost. While I was sitting with him, the 
mollahs were chanting in the mosque opposite, as it was the 
Moslem Sunday, and groups of natives were flocking thither 
to say their prayers. Presently the voice of the muezzin was 
heard from the top of the minaret, chanting in a loud, nielo* 



EL ORDEE (NEW DONGOLA). 455 

dious, melancholy cadence the call to prayer — a singular cry, 
the effect of which, especially at sunset, is really poetic and 
suggestive. I took my leave, as the Bey was expected to per- 
form his devotions with the other worshippers. 

The town may be seen in an hour. It contains no sights, 
except the bazaar, which has about twenty tolerable shops, 
principally stocked with cottons and calicoes, and a great quan- 
tity of white shawls with crimson borders, which the people 
here are fond of wearing over their shoulders. Outside the 
bazaar, which has a roof of palm-logs covered with matting, 
are a few shops, containing spices, tobacco, beads, trinkets and 
the like small articles. Beyond this was the soog, where the 
people came with their coarse tobacco, baskets of raw cotton, 
onions, palm-mats, gourds, dates, faggots of fire^wood, sheep 
and fowls. In this market-place, which ascended and descend- 
ed with the dirt-heaps left from ruined houses, there were four 
ostriches, which walked about, completely naturalized to the 
place. One of them was more chan eight feet high — a most 
powerful and graceful creature. They were not out of place, 
among the groups of wild-haired Kababish and Bisharee, who 
frequented the market. 

Below the river-bank, which is high, upwards of twenty 
small trading craft were lying. One had just arrived with a 
load of lime, which the naked sailors were carrying up the 
bank in baskets, on their heads. The channel of the Nile here 
is mainly taken up with the large, sandy island of Tor, and the 
stream is very narrow. The shore was crowded with women, 
washing clothes or filling their water-jars, men hoisting full 
water-skins on the backs of donkeys, and boys of all shades, 
from whity-yellow to perfect black, bathing and playing on the 



456 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

brink. The northern part of the town appeared to be desert- 
ed, and several spacious two-story buildings were falling into 
ruins. I noticed not more than half a dozen houses which 
would be considered handsome in Berber or Khartoum. El 
Ordee ranks next after those places, in all the Egyptian terri- 
tory beyond Assouan, but has the disadvantage of being more 
filthy than they. 



WE START FOR WADI-HALFA. 457 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

JOURNEY THROUGH DAR EL-MAHASS AND SUKKOT. 

We start for Wadi-Halfa— The Plague of Black Gnats— Mohammed's Coffin— "The 
Island of Argo — Market-Day— Scenery of the Nile — Entering Dar El-Mahass — 
Ruined Fortresses — The Camel-Men — A Rocky Chaos — Fakir Bender — The Akaba 
ofMahass — Camp in the Wilderness — The Charm of Desolation — The Nile again — 
Pilgrims from Dar-Fur — The Struggle of the Nile — An Arcadian Landscape — The 
Temple of Soleb— Dar Sukkot— The Land of Dates— The Island of Sai— A Sea of 
Sand— Camp by the River— A Hyena Barbecue. 

We left El Ordee or New Dongola, before sunrise on the 
twenty-ninth of February. A boy of about fourteen years old 
came out from the town, helped load the camels, and insisted 
on accompanying me to Cairo. As my funds were diminish 
ing, and I had no need of additional service, I refused to take 
him, and he went home greatly disappointed. We were all in 
fine health and spirits, from the two days' rest, and our ships 
of the Desert sailed briskly along the sands, with the palmy 
coasts green and fair on our right. For some miles from the 
town the land is tolerably well cultivated, but the grain was 
all much younger than in the neighborhood of Old Dongola. 
Beyond this, the country was again deserted and melancholy ; 
everywhere villages in ruin, fields given up to sand and thorns, 
20 



458 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

and groves of date trees wasting their vigor in rank, unpruned 
shoots. The edge of the Desert was covered with grave-yards 
to a considerable extent, each one boasting its cluster of pyra- 
mids and cones, raised over the remains of holy shekks. To- 
wards noon I dismounted for breakfast in a grove of sont 
trees, but had no sooner seated myself on my carpet, than the 
small black flies came in such crowds that I was scarcely able 
to eat. They assailed my temples, ears, eyes and nostrils, 
and it was utterly impossible to drive them away. I was half 
crazy with the infliction, and at night my neck and temples 
were swollen and covered with blotches worse than those made 
by mosquito stings In fact, mosquitoes are mild and merci- 
ful in comparison. Had not my road been mostly in the 
Desert, away from the trees, I could scarcely have endured the 
journey. The few inhabitants along the river kindled fires of 
green wood and sat in the smoke. 

In the afternoon the monotony of the Desert on the western 
bank was broken by a solitary mountain of a remarkable form. 
It precisely resembled an immense coffin, the ends being appa- 
rently cut square off, and as the effect of a powerful mirage 
lifted it above the horizon, it seemed like the sarcophagus of 
the Prophet, in the Kaaba, to be suspended between heaven 
and earth. The long island of Argo, which I saw occasionally 
across an Arm of the Nile, appeared rich and well cultivated. 
It belongs mostly to Melek Hammed, King of Dongola, who 
was expected at home the day I passed, on his return from 
Cairo, where he had been three months or more, for the pur- 
pose of representing to Abbas Pasha the distressed condition 
of the country, and obtaining some melioration of the system 
of misrule inflicted upon it. Near the town of Argo, on the 



TItffi PLAGUE OF BLACK GNATS. 459 

opposite side of the island nry map indicated a ruined temple, 
and I made a strong effort to see it • but at Binni, which was 
the nearest point, there was no ferry, and the people knew 
nothing of the temple nor of any thing else. I left the main 
road and followed the bank, but the terrible flies drove me 
away, and so, maddened and disgusted, I came at last to a 
saJcia, where the people informed me that the ferry was still 
ahead and the ruins already some distance behind me. They 
said this deliberately and carelessly, sitting like black spectres 
in the midst of thick smoke, while I was crazily beating my 
ears. " Tell the caravan to go ahead," I said to Achmet, at 
length, " and don't talk to me of temples until we have got 
away from these flies." 

The next morning Achmet had some difficulty in awaking 
me, so wrapt was I in dreams of home. I sat shivering in the 
cool air, trying to discover who and where I was, but the yel- 
low glimmer of my tent-lining in the dim light of dawn soon 
informed me. During the day we passed through a more 
thickly settled country, and owing to the partial cultivation of 
the soil, were less troubled by that Nubian plague, which is 
always worse about the ruined villages and the fields given up 
to halfeh grass. It was market-day at the village of Hafier, 
and we met and passed many natives, some with baskets of 
raw cotton and some with grain. I noticed one man riding a 
donkey and carrying before him a large squash, for which he 
would possibly get twenty paras (2J cents). My camel-men, 
who had neglected to buy dourra in El Ordee, wanted to stop 
until noon in order to get it, and as I would not wait, remained 
behind. 

The scenery had a wild and picturesque air, from the iso- 



400 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

lated mountain peaks, which now appeared on both sides of 
the river Bjebel Arambo, with its high, precipitous sides 
and notched summit, stood steeped in soft purple vapor — a 
beautiful object above the long lines of palms and the green 
level of the islands in the river. The fields on the western 
bank were mostly taken up with young wheat, though I saw a 
single one of ripe barley, which a black Barabra was reaping, 
cutting off the stalks about one-third of the way below the 
heads, and depositing them in heaps. By noon, I knew from 
the land-marks that we must be opposite the island of Tombos, 
where there are some ruins. I made inquiries for it, but the 
bank was almost deserted, and the few inhabitants I found 
gathered in straw huts here and there among the rank palm- 
groves, could tell me nothing about it. All agreed, however, 
that there was no ferry at this part of the Nile, and to swim 
across was out of the question. The crocodiles swarm here, and 
are quite delicate in their tastes, much preferring white flesh 
to black. So my hope of Tombos vanished like that of Argo. 
Beyond the island is a little ruined village, called Hannek, 
and here I took leave of Bar Dongola, in which I had been 
travelling ten days, and entered Bar El-Mahass, the kingdom 
of my friend Melek Byaab. The character of th^ country 
changed on the very border. Long ridges of loose blocks of 
sandstone and granite, as at Assouan and Akaba Grerri, in 
Soudan, appeared in front, at first on the western bank, but 
soon throwing their lines across the stream and forming weirs 
and rapids in its current. The river is quite narrow, in some 
places not a hundred yards broad, and leads a very tortuous 
course, bearing away towards the north-west, until it meets 
the majestic barrier of Bjebel Foga, when it turns to the north 



RUINED FORTRESSES. 461 

east. About two hours after passing Djebel Aranibo, which 
stands opposite the northern extremity of Toinbos, we reached 
the large and hilly island of Mosul, where the river divides its 
waters and flows for several miles through deep, crooked, rocky 
channels, before they meet again. Here there is no cultiva- 
tion, the stony ridges running to the water's edge. The river- 
bed is so crowded and jammed with granite rocks, that from 
the shore it appears in some places to be entirely cut off. At 
this point there are three castellated mud ruins in sight, which 
at a distance resemble the old feudal fortresses of Europe. 
The one nearest which we passed was quadrangular, with cor- 
ner bastions, three round and one square, all tapering inward 
towards the top. The lower part of the wall was stone and 
the upper part mud, while the towers were nearly fifty feet 
high. That on an island in the river, strongly resembled an 
Egyptian temple, with its pylons, porticoes, and walls of cir- 
cuit. They were evidently built before the Turkish invasion, 
and were probably frontier forts of the Kings of El-Mahass, 
to prevent incursions from the side of Dongola. 

We reached the eastern base of Djebel Eoga about four 
o'clock, and I thought it best to encamp, oa account of the 
camel-men, who had a walk of twenty-three miles with bags of 
dourra on their shoulders, before they could reach us. I had 
no sooner selected a place for my tent, on the top of a high 
bank overlooking the river, than they appeared, much fatigued 
and greatly vexed at me for leaving them in the lurch. I 
ordered my pipe to be filled, and smoked quietly, making no 
reply to their loud complaints, and in a short time the most 
complete harmony prevailed in our camp. The Nile at this 
place flowed in the bottom of a deep gorge, filled with rocks. 



462 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

The banks were almost perpendicular, but covered with a rich 
growth of halfeh, which our camels greedily cropped, at the 
hazard of losing their balance and tumbling down into the 
river. I fancied there was already a taste of Egypt in the 
mountain air, and flattered myself that I had breathed the last 
of the languid atmosphere of Soudan. 

The next morning led us deeper into the rocky chaos. The 
bed of the Nile was properly a gorge, so deep was it sunk 
among the stony hills, and confined within such narrow limits. 
The ridges of loose blocks of granite and porphyry roll after 
each other like waves, and their crests assume the most fantas- 
tic variety of forms. They are piled in heaps and balanced on 
each other, topped' with round boulders or thrown together in 
twos and threes, as if some brood of Titan children had been 
at play in those regions and were frightened away in the 
midst of their employment. It is impossible to lose the im- 
pression that some freak of human or superhuman fancy gave 
the stones their quaint grouping. Between the ridge's are 
fihallow hollows, terminating towards the west in deep, rocky 
rdefts, and opening on the river in crescent-like coves, between 
the jaggy headlands which tumble their boulders into its bed. 
High peaks, or rather conical piles of porphyry rock, rise here 
and there out of this sterile chaos. Toward the east, where 
the Nile winds away in a long chain of mazy curves, they form 
ranges and show compact walls and pinnacles. The few palms 
and the little eddies of wheat sprinkled along both banks of 
the river, are of a glorious depth and richness of hue, by con- 
trast with the gray and purple wastes of the hills. In the 
sweet, clear air of the morning, the scenery was truly inspir- 
ing, and I rode over the high ridges in a mood the very oppo- 
site of that I had felt the day previous. 



THE AKABA OF MAHASS. 463 

The Nile makes a great curve through, the land of Mahass, 
to avoid which the road passes through an alcaba, about forty 
miles in length. At the corner, where the river curves at a 
right angle from west to south, is a small ruined place called 
Fakir Bender. The high hank is a little less steep here than 
at other places, and its sides are planted with lupins. At the 
end of the village is an immense sont tree, apparently very 
old. A large earthen water-jar, with a gourd heside it, stood 
in the shade. The fdlceer, or holy man, from whom the place 
is named, was soon in attendance, and as our camels knelt 
under the tree, presented me with a gourd of cool water, " in 
the name of God." I gave him ten paras before we left, but he 
did not appear to be satisfied, for these holy men have great 
expectations. I ordered two water-skins filled, and after an 
hour's delay, we entered on the akaba. 

Over rough and stony ridges, which made hard travelling 
for the camels, we came upon a rolling plain, bounded in the 
distance by a chain of hills, which we reached by the middle 
of the afternoon. The path, instead of seeking a pass or gorge, 
led directly up the side, which, though not very high, was 
exceedingly steep and covered with loose sand, up which the 
camels could scarcely climb. The top was a stratum of red 
porphyry, cropping out of the sand in immense masses. Be- 
hind us the dreary Desert extended to Djebel Foga and the 
mountains about the cataract : the palms of the Nile were just 
visible in the distance. Crossing the summit ridge, we enter- 
ed a narrow plateau, surrounded by naked black peaks — a most 
savage and infernal landscape. The northern slope was com- 
pletely covered with immense porphyry boulders, among which 
our path wound. Nearly every rock had a pile of small stones 



464 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

heaped upon it, as a guide to caravans, and merely for descend- 
ing this ridge there were at least two hundred of them. The 
plain now extended away to the north and east, bounded by a 
confusion of black, barren mountains, out of which rose two 
lofty peaks. Towards evening we met a Nubian family, with 
their donkeys, on their way southward. They begged for 
water, which we gave them, as their supply was entirely ex- 
hausted. I found a bed of hard gravel large enough for my 
tent, but we had great difficulty in driving the pegs. The 
camel-men selected the softest places among the rocks for 
their beds, but the camels stretched their long necks on all 
sides in the vain search for vegetation. I sat at my tent door, 
and watched the short twilight of the South gather over the 
stony wilderness, with that strange feeling of happiness which 
the contemplation of waste and desolate landscapes always 
inspires. There was not a blade of grass to be seen ; the 
rocks, which assumed weird and grotesque forms in the twi- 
light, were as black as ink; beyond my camp there was no 
life in the Desert except the ostrich and the hyena — yet I 
would not have exchanged the charm of that scene for a bower 
in the gardens of the Hesperides. 

The dawn was glimmering gray and cold when I arose, and 
the black summits of the mountains showed dimly through a 
watery vapor. The air, however, was dry, though cool and 
invigorating, and I walked ahead for two hours, singing and 
shouting from the overflow of spirits. I hoped to catch a 
glimpse of the Nile before mounting my dromedary, but one 
long black ridge of stones rose after another, and there was no 
sudden flash of green across the darkness of the Desert. At 
last, towards noon, through a notch in the drear and stony 



THE STRUGGLE OF THE NILE. 465 

chaos, the double line of palms appeared in the north-east. 
The river came from the east, out of the black mountain wil- 
derness. The valley is very narrow, and cultivation is only 
possible in the coves of soil embayed among the hills. I came 
down on one of them — a meadow of halfeh, back of the little 
village of Koyee — and stopped an hour to rest the camels. A 
caravan of merchants, bound for Kordofan and Dar-Fur, had 
just encamped there, to rest during the hot hours, according to 
their custom. Among them were some hadji, or pilgrims 
from Dar-Fur, on their way home from Mecca, and a negro 
from Fazogl, who had belonged to. a European, and had lived 
in Naples. He was now free and going home, wearing a 
shabby Frank dress, but without money, as he came at once to 
beg of me. A Nubian woman came from the huts near at 
hand, bringing me a large gourd of buttermilk, which I shared 
with the camel-drivers. 

I set the camels in motion again, and we entered a short 
akaba, in order to cross a broad stony ridge, which advanced 
quite to the river's edge. The path was up and down the 
sides of steep hollows, over a terrible waste of stones. Down 
these hollows, which shelved towards the river, we saw the 
palms of the opposite bank — a single dark-green line, backed 
by another wilderness, equally savage. Through all this 
country of Mahass the Desert makes a desperate effort to cut 
off the glorious old River. It flings rocks into its bed, squeezes 
him between iron mountains, compels him to turn and twist 
through a hundred labyrinths to find a passage, but he pushes 
and winds his way through all, and carries his bright waters 
in triumph down to his beloved Egypt. There was, to me, 
something exceedingly touching in watching his course through 
20* 



466 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

that fragment of the pre-Adamite chaos — in seeing the type of 
Beauty and Life stealing quietly through the heart of a region 
of Desolation and Death. From the stony slopes of the hills I 
looked down on his everlasting palms with the same old joy 
new-created in my heart. 

After passing the akaba, I came to a village which I took 
to be Soleb, but on inquiring, the people pointed ahead. I 
rode on, around a slight curve of the trees, and was startled 
by a landscape of most unexpected interest and beauty Before 
me, over the crest of a black, rocky ridge, a cluster of shatter- 
ed pillars stood around the falling doorway of a temple, the 
whole forming a picturesque group, cut clear against the sky. 
Its tint of soft yellow-gray, was finely relieved by the dark 
green of the palms and the pure violet of some distant jagged 
peaks on the eastern bank. Beyond it, to the west, three 
peaks of white and purple limestone rock trembled in the fiery 
glare from the desert sands. The whole picture, the Desert 
excepted, was more G-recian than Egyptian, and was perfect in 
its forms and groupings. I know of no other name for the 
ruin than the Temple of Soleb. It was erected by Amunoph 
III. or Memnon, and the Arcadian character of the landscape 
ef which it is the central feature, harmonized thoroughly with 
my fancy, that Amunoph was a poet. 

The temple stands on the west bank, near the river, and 
from whatever point it is viewed, has a striking effect. The 
remains consist of a portico, on a raised platform, leading to a 
court once surrounded by pillars. Then follows a second and 
more spacious portico, with a double row of three pillars on 
each side. This opens upon a second pillared court, at the 
opposite end of which is a massive doorway, leading to the 



THE TEMPLE OF SOLEB. 467 

adyta of the temple, now completely levelled to the earth. The 
entire length of the ruin is about two hundred feet. There 
are nine pillars, with a single block of their architrave, and 
portions of two of the porticoes still standing : the remainder 
of the temple is a mass of ruins. The greatest pains have been' 
taken to destroy it completely, and all the mound on which it 
stands is covered with huge blocks, thrown one over the other 
in the wildest confusion. In one place, only, I noticed the 
disjointed segments of a column, still lying as they fell. The 
pedestals remain in many places, so that one can partially 
restore the original order. When complete, it must have been 
a majestic and imposing edifice. The material is the white 
limestone of the adjacent mountains, veined with purple 
streaks, and now much decomposed from the sun and rain, 
From the effect of this decomposition, the columns which 
remain standing are cracked and split in many places, and in 
the fissures thus made, numbers of little swallows and star- 
lings have built their nests, where they sit peeping out through 
the sculptures of gods. The columns and doorways are cover 
ed with figures, now greatly blurred, though still legible. I 
noticed a new style of joining the portrait of a monarch with 
his cartouche, the latter representing his body, out of which 
his head and arms issued, like the crest of a coat of arms. 
The columns represent the stalks of eight water-plants bound 
together, with a capital, or rather prolonged abacus, like the 
Osiride column. They are thirty feet in height, without the 
pedestal, and five feet in diameter. This is the sum of my 
observations : the rest belongs to the antiquarian. 

Before night, we passed a third akaba, to get around the 
limestone ridge, which here builds a buttress of naked rock 



468 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

over the Nile, and at sunset again saw the palms — but this 
time the renowned palms of Dar Sukkot, for we had crossed 
the border of Dar El-Mahass. They lined the river in a thick 
grove of stems, with crowns of leafy luxuriance. The village 
of Noolwee, scattered for half a mile in their shade, was better 
built than any I saw in Dongola. Many of the houses were 
inclosed in square courts, and had a second story, the massive 
mud walls sloping towards each other like a truncated pyra- 
mid. Achmet, Ali and myself bought about fifty piastres 
worth of the celebrated dates of Sukkot. They were the 
largest and best flavored I ever saw, and are said to preserve 
their quality for years. They are sold at a piastre for an 
earthen measure containing about two hundred. When gath- 
ered, they are first slightly dried in the large magazines, and 
then buried in the earth. The population of Sukkot subsists 
apparently on the profits of selling them, for little else is culti- 
vated along the river. Even here, nevertheless, where the 
people are better able to bear the grinding rule of Egypt, one 
meets with deserted fields and ruined dwellings. The King 
of El-Mahass informed me, when in Khartoum, that his people 
were obliged to pay six hundred piastres (thirty dollars) tax 
on each water-mill, being just double the lawful amount, 
(which, alone, is very oppressive), and that his country was 
fast becoming depopulated, in consequence. 

On the following clay I passed the large island of Sai. The 
country here is more open and the Nile has a less vexed course. 
The mountains, especially the lofty blue mass of Djebel Abyr, 
have not the forced and violent forms common to the porphyry 
formation. Their outlines are long, sloping, and with that 
slight but exquisite undulation which so charmed me in the 



A SEA OF SAND. 469 

hills of Arcadia, in Greece, and in Monte Albano near Rome. 
Their soft, clear, pale-violet hue showed with the loveliest 
effect behind the velvety green of the thick palm clusters, 
which were parted here and there by gleams of the bright blue 
river. From the northern end of Sai, the river gradually 
curves to the east. The western shore is completely invaded 
by the sands, and the road takes a wide sweep inland to avoid 
the loose, sliding drifts piled up along the bank. We had not 
gone far before we found a drift of brilliant yellow sand thirty 
feet high and two hundred yards in length, lying exactly across 
our road. It had evidently been formed within a few days. 
It was almost precisely crescent-shaped, and I could not account 
for the action of the wind in building such a mound on an open 
plain, which elsewhere was entirely free from sand. We 
rounded it and soon afterwards entered on a region of sand, 
where to the west and north the rolling yellow waves extended 
to the horizon, unbroken by a speck of any other color. It 
was a boundless, fathomless sea of sand to the eye, which could 
scarcely bear the radiated light playing over its hot surface. 
The day (for a wonder) was somewhat overcast, and as the 
shadows of small clouds followed one another rapidly over the 
glaring billows, they seemed to heave and roll like those of the 
sea. I was forced to turn away my head, faint and giddy 
with the sight. My camels tugged painfully through this 
region, and after two hours we reached a single sont tree, 
standing beside a well, and called sugger el-abd (the Tree of 
the Slave). It was pointed out by the camel-men as being 
half-way between El Ordee and Wadi Haifa. 

We journeyed on all the afternoon through a waste of sandy 
and stony ridges, and as night drew near, I became anxious to 



470 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

reach the river, no trace of which could be seen. I rode up 
one of the highest ridges, and lo ! there were the tops of the 
date-groves in a hollow, not a quarter of a mile distant, on 
my right. The camels' heads were soon turned in that direc- 
tion, and I encamped at once on the bank, where my beasts 
found sufficient grass and thorns for the first time in three 
days. The river here flows in a deep channel, buried among 
the hills, and there is neither cultivation nor population on the 
western bank. On the opposite side there was a narrow strip 
of soil, thickly planted with date-trees. 

My camel-men kindled a fire in the splendid moonlight, and 
regaled themselves with the hind-quarters of a hyena, which 
they roasted in the coals and devoured with much relish. I 
had curiosity enough to eat a small piece, which was well- 
flavored though tough. The Nile roared grandly below our 
camp all night, in the pauses of the wind. 





Abou-Sin, my Dromedary. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE BATN EL-HADJAR. 



The Bate El-Hadjar, or Belly of Stone— Ancient Granite Quarries— The Village of 
Dal — A Ruined Fortress— A "Wilderness of Stones— The Hot Springs of TTkme— A 
Windy Night — A Dreary Day in the Desert— The Shekh's Camel Fails— Descent t« 
Samneh — The Temple and Cataract — Meersheh — The Sale of Abou-Sin— We 
Emerge from the Belly of Stone — A Kababish Caravan — Tho Rock of Abou-Seer— 
View of the Second Cataract — We reach Wadi-Halfa — Selling my Dromedaries- 
Farewell to Abou-Sin — Thanksgiving on the Ferry-boat — Parting with the Camel- 
men. 

Ox the sixth day after leaving Dongola I passed through 
Sukkot, and reached the commencement of Batn El-Hadjar — 
The Belly of Stone — as the savage mountain country for a 



472 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hundred miles south of the Second Cataract is termed. With 
each day the road became more rough and toilsome, and my 
camels moved more languidly. In spite of the fatigue which 
we all endured, I felt so much strengthened by our free life 
and so much interested in the remarkable country through 
which, we were passing, that I felt something like regret on 
approaching the southern limit of travel on the Nile. Not so 
my dragoman and servant, who could not enough thank God 
and the Prophet for having taken them in safety through 
countries which they deemed the verge of the world. Achmet 
positively declared he would never make the trip again, for no 
second journey could be equally fortunate. My camel-men, I 
found, had never before travelled to Wadi Haifa by the west- 
ern bank, but by a wonderful Arab instinct, they never went 
astray from the road. 

The B.atn El-Hadjar marks its commencement by a range 
of granite hills, which break the river into a foaming cataract. 
After leaving camp, our road lay along the Nile, behind some 
high sand-hills. In front of us appeared Djebel Ufeer, a peak 
about fifteen hundred feet in height, its naked sides tinted of a 
deep, rich purple hue by the glowing air. The Nile flows 
directly towards its base, making a slight curve, as if to pass 
it on the eastern side, but finding the granite rocks heaped 
together too thickly, changes its course and washes the western 
foot of the mountain. The granite lies scattered about in vast 
masses, taking all sorts of quaint and fanciful shapes. The 
hills themselves are merely collections of boulders of all sizes, 
from three to twenty feet in diameter, piled on an enormous 
bed or stratum of the same. Intermixed with this are beds 
of a rich yellowish-red granite, which crops out under the piles 



GRANITE QUARRIES DAL. 473 

of gray, and has been worked, wherever it appears in large 
masses. The traces of the ancient quarrymen still remain, in 
the blocks bearing marks of the wooden wedges by which they 
were split. In one place I noticed two fragments of a column, 
similar to those in the palace at Old Dongola. The granite is 
equal in quality and still more abundant than that at Assouan, 
but was only quarried to a limited extent. The aspect of the 
country is rugged in the highest degree, and how the Nile gets 
through it became more and more a wonder to me. His bed 
is deep-sunken between enormous stone-piles, back of which are 
high stone mountains, and wherever there is a hollow between 
them, it is filled with sand. The only vegetation was a few 
bunches of miserable grass, and some of those desert shrubs 
which grow at the very doors of Tartarus, so tenacious of life are 
they. A narrow shelf, on the opposite bank, high above the 
river, bore the renowned palm of Sukkot, and frequently in the 
little coves I saw the living green of the young wheat. The 
steep banks were planted with lupins, as the people there had 
nothing to fear from the hippopotami. 

While I was breakfasting off a great granite table, a man 
who rode by on a donkey cheered me with the news that the 
village of Dal was but a short distance ahead. I had fixed 
upon this as our resting-place for the night, but on finding it 
so near, resolved to push on to some natural hot springs and 
ruins of ancient baths, which the camel-men had informed me 
were about four hours further, to the right of the caravan 
track. At Dal, however, a difficult akaba commences, and my 
camels already marched so slowly and wearily that I judged 
it best to stop and give them a little rest. About the village 
there are some scattering doum and date-palms, which lead a 



474 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hard existence, half buried in sand and choked with the old 
leaves, which the natives axe too idle to prune. The people 
were in the fields, cutting some wheat which was just ripe, and 
two sakias, shaded by clusters of palms, watered a few patches 
of cotton. I made inquiries, but had much difficulty in finding 
the location of the hot springs. Finally, one of the men con- 
sented to become my guide in the morning, and conducted us 
to a camping-ground, where there was a little grass for the 
camels. Lured by the promise of backsheesh, he brought me 
the leanest of young sheep, which I purchased for eight pias- 
tres. The night was calm, cool and delicious, and steeped my 
whole frame in balm, after the burning day. The moon, near- 
ly full, shone with a gray and hazy lustre, and some insect 
that shrilled like a tree-toad, reminded me of home. 

Our Bailee guide, Hadji Mohammed, as he was called, 
from having made two pilgrimages to Mecca, was on hand be- 
fore sunrise. Starting in advance of the caravan, I walked 
along the river-bank, towards a castellated building on an emi- 
nence which I had noticed the previous evening, while sketch- 
ing the landscape. My path was over huge beds of gray 
granite, from which the old Egyptians might have cut obelisks 
of a single block, not only one hundred, but five hundred feet 
in length. The enormous masses which had been separated 
from these beds and rolled into rounded masses by the chafing 
of primeval floods, lay scattered on the surface, singly, or piled 
in fantastic groups. The building was a large fortress of 
stones and clay, with massive walls, on the summit of an 
island-like peak overhanging the river, and separated from the 
bank by a deep chasm, which is filled with water" during the 
inundations, but was then dry, and its sides green with wheat 



A WILDERNESS OF STONES. 475 

and beans. Wild douni-pahns, hanging heavy with green fruit, 
grew in the patches of soil among the rocks and overhung the 
ravine. The fortress was a very picturesque object, with its 
three square towers, backed by the roaring flood and the dark 
violet-blue crags of Djebel Meme behind. The forms of the 
landscape — except the palms — were all of the far North, but 
the coloring was that of the ripe and glowing South. -I was so 
absorbed in the scene, that the caravan passed unnoticed, hav- 
ing taken a path further from the river. After wandering 
about for some time, I climbed one of the granite piles and 
scanned the country in all directions, but could see nothing. 
Finally I descried a distant trail, and on reaching it, recog- 
nized the tracks of my camels. I hurried on, and in half an 
hour met Hadji Mohammed and one of my camel-men, coming 
back in great tribulation, fearful that I Avas lost. 

Near the Cataract of Dal, an akaba commences, which ex- 
tends to the village of Ukme, in the Batn el-Hadjar, a dis- 
tance of about fifteen miles. We passed behind some peaks of 
black porphyry, whose shoulders were covered with steep, slid- 
ing drifts of yellow sand, and travelled on through a wilder- 
ness of stones. All the refuse odds and ends of Creation — 
the pieces left after the rocks and mountains of the rest of the 
world were fashioned — have been thrown together here. It 
was a sea of black stone-mounds, out of which rose occasional 
peaks of still blacker stone. Through this we passed into a 
region of gray stone and then into another of red stone, jour- 
neying for four hours up one mound and down another, by 
paths and no paths, which were most laborious for our camels. 
I began to be fearful we should never get out of the geological 
labyrinth into which the hadji conducted us, but the majestic 



476 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

range of Djebel El-Lamool, beyond the Nile, served him as a 
guide. He looked occasionally towards a bastion-like projec- 
tion in the sheer walls of porphyry, and at last, when I was 
quite tired and famished, took us up a ridge whence I saw the 
river again below us. The road into the valley was next to 
impracticable, but our camels stumbled and scrambled and slid 
till they reached the ledge of halfeh overhanging the river. 
Below us was a stpare mass of burnt brick, about ten feet in 
height — part of a building long since destroyed. " Here is 
the bath," said the hadji. We dismounted, and he conducted 
us to the foot of the ruin, where, in a hole in the earth, a 
spring of water bubbled up profusely, and trickled away, 
through a trough of stones. There was an end of my antici- 
pations of a refreshing bath, for which I had come prepared. 
The water was hot enough, in truth (131°), and I could not 
bear my hand below the surface. Under the bank, a dozen 
springs with a saialler flow of water, oozed through the soil, 
which was covered with a whitish deposit in places. To atone 
for my disappointment, I took breakfast in the shadow of the 
ruined wall, while my camel-men bathed themselves in the wa-. 
ter, with many exclamations of " BismiTlahi! '" (In the name 
of G-od). The hadji then left us, and we followed the Nile 
past the cataracts of Song and Tangoori, which latter we heard 
all night, roaring grandly between the gusts of wind. 

During the night the wind blew violently, and I had great 
fears that my tent would come down about my ears. I heaped 
the sand against it on the outside, for further protection, but 
every thing within was so covered that its original color could 
no longer be discerned. The moon shone between wild and 
stormy clouds, and all signs betokened a gust of rain. We 



A DREARY DAY IN THE DESERT. 4*7 7 

took more than ordinary precautions in the disposition of our 
baggage, as this part of the road was much infested with ma- 
rauding bands of Kababish, who came from the side of Dar- 
Fur and plundered the inhabitants along the river, as well as 
small caravans. I trusted in the protection afforded by my 
tent, which, from its appearance, would be taken as belonging 
to an officer of the government. 

On the eighth day we rose — for the first time in all my 
African travel — in a cold, raw and cloudy dawn. Fortunately 
for us, a company of merchants, bound for Wadi-Halfa, passed 
at daybreak, for we entered on an akaba of unknown length, 
and the wind had blown so violently within the last few days 
that the old caravan trail was not to be found. The country 
was a wilderness even more drear than those we had passed. 
On climbing the long stony surges, I sometimes flattered my- 
self with the hope of seeing beyond the Desert ; but no — I 
had only a more extended horizon. Long, shadowy streaks of 
rain swept along the eastern horizon, and the mountain- chains 
which lay against them were colored the darkest and intensest 
shade of violet— precisely that of the lower leaves of the pansy. 
As we advanced, the air grew colder, and a shower of large, 
scattering drops passed over us. The camels shrank and trem- 
bled, and my men crept behind them for shelter. Though it 
was a satisfaction to know that those African skies can rain 
sometimes, I was soon so benumbed as to need my capote. 
The temperature was perhaps not lower than 60°, yet I felt it 
severely. About ten o'clock, the shekh's camel, which had be- 
fore shown symptoms of fatigue, lay down and refused to go 
further. As it was impossible to stop in the Desert, I dis- 
tributed its load among the other four, and ordered him to 



478 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

drive it loose behind us. This, however, was of no avail, and 
at last he concluded to wait till it had rested a little. I gave 
him the water-skin, and we pushed on. Half an hour af- 
terwards, when I was eating breakfast under the lee of a 
sand-hill, Ali, who had remained behind with him, came up, 
saying they had examined the camel and decided that it was 
sick. The shekh thereupon wept most vehemently, fearing it 
would die, and turned about with it to make his way home. 
Ali lent him a dollar and promised to take him the rest of the 
money due him. The other men were quite downcast by the 
shekh's misfortune. There was nothing to be done, how- 
ever, but to push ahead, as the other camels were well nigh 
worn out. 

We kept on all the afternoon, with the cold wind blowing 
in our faces, and occasionally a shower of colder rain dashed 
upon us. The road ascended until towards noon, when we 
passed through a gateway between two peaks of granite, whose 
loose masses threatened to topple down the sides and crush us. 
Then for three or four hours we travelled over more elevated 
ranges, from the crests of which we had wide glimpses over the 
terrible tract, yet could see nothing but sand and stones — stones 
and sand. In the east a long mountain-range lay dark and 
distant, under the shadow of the rain-clouds, and it was some 
comfort to know that it was beyond the Nile. As night ap- 
proached, I feared we should be obliged to camp in the akaba, 
and without water, but after ten hours of most wearisome 
travel, we reached a ridge, whence we looked into a vast basin 
of rocky hills, between us and the mountains, whose long chain 
of jagged peaks, touched with the full yellow light of the set- 
ting sun, stood against the black gust that rolled away beyond 



TEMPLE AND CATARACT OF SAMNEH. 479 

them into the Great Nubian Desert. The Nile was not to he 
seen, yet deep in the centre of this landscape, I caught a 
glimpse of some thorny bushes, which our further descent 
showed to he near the village and cataract of Samneh. The 
bed of the river was filled with masses of black rock, .and the 
cataract, just below the village, roared magnificently all 
through the night. The wind blew again, and so violently, 
that I awoke with my ears, mouth and nostrils filled with sand. 
The morning was cold, with a violent wind, but I strength- 
ened my camels with an abundant feed of bean-vines and dour 
ra, and set off early. I walked ahead to the temple of Sam- 
neh, which stands on a rocky eminence above the cataract. 
The hill is surrounded with the remains of a massive brick 
wall, and there are traces of a road leading to the summit. 
The temple is quite small, and of simple though graceful de- 
sign, containing only one chamber, at the end of which a head- 
less statue lies on its back. Prom the little portico in front, 
there is a fine view of the gorge through which the river breaks. 
A broad stratum of porphyry crosses his bed, broken only in 
the centre by a gap or flood-gate, not twenty yards across. 
Through this the whole force of his current is poured, and at 
the time of my visit, when the water was low, he seemed but a 
pigmy flood. In fact, for a mile or two below this cataract, 
there is scarcely any point in all his tortuous and difficult 
course where one might not throw a stone across. After leav- 
ing the temple, our road led over the desolate stony hills, high 
above the river's bed. "We looked down into the deep and. 
narrow defile through which he flows, and which his waters 
scarcely brightened or cheered, for there was no vegetation on 
his banks except now and then a bunch of halfeh grass or a 



480 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

few stunted thorns. The air was so bracing that I felt no 
more fatigue, but only regret, that the journey was so near its 
close. Old Mohammed walked ahead, singing his accustomed 
song : " KooIIgo nasee fee djennatee, iefoddhel, ya er-rakh- 
man ! " (0 Most Merciful, grant that all my people may enter 
thy Heavens !) Thus we travelled all day, and towards even- 
ing came down to the Nile again at the little village of Meer- 
sheh. 

This place is a beautiful little oasis in the midst of the 
savage Belly of Stone. The Nile has a more gentle current, 
and his banks have room enough for some groves of luxuriant 
date-trees, and fields of wheat and cotton. My tent was 
pitched beside the rustling palms, and I sat down with a glad 
heart and a full pipe, on the last night of my long am toil- 
some journey by land. During the evening one of the natives 
took a fancy to my Abou-Sin, and made numerous small offers 
for the purchase of him. I refused, preferring to send him on 
to Assouan, but in the morning the man came again, and at 
last, with many struggles, raised his price to one hundred and 
ninety piastres, whereupon I thought it best to sell and so 
avoid all further trouble. I stipulated, however, that Abou- 
Sin was to be delivered to him at WadUHalfa, and that he 
should accompany us thither on the morrow. The night was 
intensely cold, although the air was probably not "below 60°. 
I could hardly bear the coldness of the water in the morning. 
It stung my burnt face like fire, and increased the pains of my 
unfortunate cracked nose. The Barabras brought me some 
milk for my coffee in a basket of closely-plaited grass, smeared 
with grease on the inside. It precisely resembled those bas- 
kets made by the Indians of California, which will carry water. 



A KABABISH CARAVAN. 481 

The milk, however, had a taste of the rancid grease, which 
prevented me from drinking much of it. 

We arose shivering in the early dawn, and for the last time 
put the loads on our fagged and unwilling camels. Soon after 
starting, I saw ahead, through a gateway of black porphyry 
rocks, the long, yellow sand-hills of the Libyan Desert, like 
those which line the western bank of the Nile, from Assouan 
to Korosko. This was a joyful token that we had reached the 
end of the savage Batn El-Hadjar. As we were travelling 
over the rolling upland of yellow sand, enjoying the view of 
the wild frontier of the Belly of Stone, out of which we had 
just issued, a large caravan of Kababish Arabs, returning 
towards Dar-Fur with empty camels, met us. There were 
upwards of fifty camels and thirty men — half-naked savages, 
with projecting features, wild eyes, and a wilderness of hair on 
their heads. The Kababish were easily distinguished by their 
long plaits, laid close to the head, and smeared with fat. The 
others, who had enormous masses of wool, standing out in all 
directions for a foot or more, were probably Howoweet, from 
the side of Dar-Fur. We asked the distance to Wadi Haifa, 
and were answered with the universal "hassa" (just now !) 
whereby these people designate any indefinite period of time. 

After three or four hours, I began to look out for Abou- 
Seer, a lofty cliff to which travellers repair for a bird's-eye 
view of the Second Cataract — to them the turning point of 
their Nile journey, to me the termination of my long mid- 
African rambles, and the commencement of my return to the 
living world. Our road was a mile or two behind the river, 
and as Achmet had only visited the mountain from the side of 
Wadi Haifa, he could not serve as a guide. I turned into the 
21. 



482 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

hills, taking liim, Mohammed and Ali, and leaving the other 
man to go on with the baggage camels. We wandered for 
some time over the rough ridges, and at last reached a spur 
of the hills which Achmet took to be Abou-Seer, but which 
was not it. I was so hungry that I stopped for breakfast, and 
before I had finished, Ali, who was overflowing with joy at the 
idea of reaching Wadi Haifa, came to me with the news that 
he had been climbing a high point, whence he could see the 
end of the mountains. The Nile, beyond, he said, was broad 
and smooth, and there were more date-trees than he had seen 
since leaving Sukkot. I left him to ride my Abou-Sin, and 
walked on to the peak he had climbed. As I reached its base, 
however, I saw that the true headland projected still further 
beyond, terminating in a cone-like summit. As I came out 
from among the hills behind it, the view suddenly opened 
before me far to the north and east, and I saw the long date^ 
groves of Wadi Haifa apparently at my feet. 

Abou-Seer is a cliff of calcareous rock, and its base is com- 
pletely covered with the names of tourists who have visited it. 
Achmet wanted me to add my name to theirs, but as I had 
brought no hammer and chisel from Cairo, like most travellers, 
I could not gratify him. A few steps took me to the summit 
of the cliff, which drops on the eastern side in a sheer preci- 
pice to the water's edge. It is at least three hundred feet in 
perpendicular height, and as it forms the corner of the range, 
the view on three sides is uninterrupted for many leagues, 
The panorama is truly grand, and probably unlike any other 
in the world. To the south the mountains of the Batn El- 
Hadjar rise like a black wall, out of which the Nile forces its 
way, not in a broad sheet, but in a hundred vexed streams, 



THE SECOND CATARACT. 483 

gurgling up amid chaotic heaps of rocks as if from subterra- 
nean sources, foaming and fretting their difficult way round 
endless islands and reefs, meeting and separating, seeking 
every where an outlet and finding none, till at last, as if weary 
of the long contest, the rocks recede, and the united waters 
spread themselves out, sluggish and exhausted, on the sands 
below. It is a wonderful picture of strife between two mate- 
rial forces, but so intricate and labyrinthine in its features, 
that the eye can scarcely succeed in separating them, or in 
viewing it other than as a whole. The streams, in their thou- 
sand windings, appear to flow towards all points of the compass, 
and from their continual noise and motion on all sides, the 
whole fantastic wilderness of rock seems to heave and tug, as 
it is throttled by the furious waters. This is the last great 
struggle and triumph of the Nile. Henceforth, his tortured 
•waters find repose. He goes down to Egypt as a conquered 
crowned with a double majesty after all his toils. Is it to be 
wondered at, that the ancient race which existed by his bounty, 
should worship him as a Grod ? 

But by this time we saw our baggage-camels, like specks on 
the sand, approaching Wadi Haifa. Ali, unable to contain 
himself, started off on a run, and we soon lost sight of him. I 
mounted my faithful big dromedary, Abou-Sin, and after two 
more hours on his lofty hump, dismounted at the ferry-place, 
opposite "Wadi Haifa, never, alas ! to mount him again. A 
boat with a company of merchants from Cairo had just arrived, 
and the sailors were unloading their packages of merchandise. 
The merchants came up and saluted me, and could scarcely 
believe that I had been so far as the White Nile. They were 
bound for Dongola, and one of them, learning that my brown 



484 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

dromedary was for sale, offered to buy it. Achmet conducted 
the business for ine, for the bargaining lasted at least two 
hours, before the purchaser succeeded in slowly struggling up 
to a decent price. The Barabra who had bought Abou-Sin 
was also on hand, to ratify the bargain, and I was thus saved 
from the necessity of sending the animals to the markets of 
Assouan. I must do both the men the justice to say that they 
afterwards made every exertion to cheat me, in the way of 
counting money and offering bad pieces, and at last gave a 
large pile of copper coin, which, when it was counted, lacked 
two piastres of the right amount. When all was finished, I 
delivered Abou-Sin into the hands of his rascally new master, 
with a sorrowful heart, for the old fellow and I were good 
friends. Had he known we were to be separated, I am sure 
those large black eyes of his would have dropped a few tears, 
and that capacious throat gurgled out a sound of lamentation. 
Achmet threw his arms around the beast's big head and kissed 
him tenderly. I was about to do the same thing, when I 
remembered that the never-sweating skin of a dromedary 
exhales not the freshest of odors, and preferred caressing him 
with my haud rather than my lips. So farewell to Abou-Sin, 
and may he never want dourra and bean-vines, nor complain 
under too heavy loads : and should he die soon (for he is 
waxing in years), may some son of his strong loins be there to 
carry me, when next I visit Central Africa ! 

My arrival at Wadi Haifa terminated the journey of thirty- 
four days from Khartoum. In that time my little caravan 
had travelled between eight and nine hundred miles, and at 
least half of it as rough travelling as can be found in Africa. 
Now we were beyond danger and done with fatigue, and could 



THANKSGIVING AND PARTING. 485 

look forward to seeing Cairo in another month. Not until we 
were all seated in the ferry-boat, crossing from the opposite 
bank, did I fairly realize that our severe journey was over. 
The camels were left behind, the baggage piled up on board, 
and as we were rowed slowly across the river, it suddenly 
flashed through my mind that the same gentle motion of oars 
and waves was thenceforth to rock me all the way to Cairo. 
I drew a long breath, and fervently ejaculated : " el hamdu 
lillah ! " to which the others, as in duty bound, responded. 
Achmet, who usually postponed his prayers until he reached 
home, recited a chapter from the Koran, and Ali, who never 
prayed, broke into sailor-songs by starts, and laughed continu- 
ally, from inward delight. 

After my tent was pitched on the beach, I called my camel- 
men, Ali and Mohammed, who had crossed with me, and gave 
them each the forty piastres still due, with a Maria Theresa 
dollar — abou-zerar, or the Father of Buttons, as this coin is 
called in Central Africa, from the button which clasps the 
drapery on the Empress's shoulder — as backsheesh. The men 
were delighted, and kissed my hand, in token of gratitude. I 
gave them also the money for the shekh, and took leave of 
them with the exclamation : " May God grant you a prosper- 
ous return to your country ! " They replied, warmly : "May 
God prolong your days, Effendi ! " and as they moved away, 
I overheard old Mohammed again declare to Achmet : " Wal- 
lah, but this is a- good Frank ! He certainly has Islam in his 
heart!" 



486 JOURNEY" TO CENTRAL A.ERICA. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

THE ROCK TEMPLES OF ABOU-SIMBEL. 

Wadi Haifa— A Boat for. Assouan — We Embark on the Nile Again — An Egyj tian 
Dream— The Temples of Abou-Simbel— The Smaller .Temple— The Colossi of 
Eemeses II. — Vulgarity of Travellers — Entering the Great Temple — My Impres- 
sions — Character of Abou-Simbel— The Smaller Chambers — The Races of Men — 
Remeses and the Captive Kings — Departure. 

"Wadi Halfa is an ordinary Arab village, and noted only for 
being the bead of navigation on tbe Nubian Nile. There 
were sis or seven boats in port, some of them loaded with gum 
and ready to start for Assouan. They were all neJclcers, or 
trading boats, built of heavy wood, and not to be moved down 
stream against a strong head-wind. I therefore engaged the 
ferry-boat in which I had crossed — a light, open boat, manned 
by two Nubian boys. The rais made a frame of sticks near 
the stern, and covered it with palm-mats, to serve as a cabin. 
The open hold was turned into a kitchen, and taken possession 
of by my two men. There was barely room enough for all of 
us and our baggage, and a fat sheep I bought, as provision for 
the voyage, but as I proposed being gloriously lazy, to make 
up for the foregone toils, I needed no more. 



VOVAGE DOWN THE NILE. 487 

The morning after my arrival at Wadi Haifa all was 
ready. A few children came down to greet me with the hate- 
ful word "backsheesh," which I had not heard for three 
months and hoped never to hear again ; but a few Arabic ex- 
clamations soon put them to flight. "We shoved away from the 
beach, followed by the cries of a dozen lazy sailors, who also 
wanted backsheesh for saying " salaam'''' at parting. I stretch- 
ed myself out on my bed, on deck, and lay looking on the 
receding shore, where my camel-men and camels (Abou-Sin 
still among them) were encamped. Abou-Sin's head was turn- 
ed towards the river, as if looking for his master, for the 
hapless creature certainly thought I should go over to mount 
him on the morrow. Alas, my brave old dromedary ! we shall 
never again play friendly tricks upon each other. Rais Ram- 
adan took his station at the helm, and the boys plied their 
oars actively, so that we soon lost sight of Wadi Haifa. All 
the afternoon we glided slowly down the stream between rich 
palm-groves and grain-fields. The appearance of thrift and 
fertility, which the country presented, was most agreeable 
after the waste fields of Dongola, and the unproductive rocks 
and sands of the intermediate districts. The mountains behind 
were lower and rounder in their outlines, and the landscapes 
softer an richer than any I had seen since leaving beautiful 
Dar Shygheea. By sunset we had made such good progress, 
that there was every hope of reaching Abou-Simbel in the 
morning. 

There was no wind during the night, and the boys worked 
bravely. About two hours after midnight I was awakened 
from a deep sleep by the shock of the boat striking the shore. 
I opened my eyes and saw, as I lay, without moving my head, 



488 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

a huge wall of rock before me, against which six enormous 
statues leaned as they looked from deep niches cut in its front. 
Their solemn faces were touched by the moon, which shone 
full on the cliff, and only their feet were wrapped in shadow. 
The lines of deep-cut hieroglyphics over the portal of this 
rocky temple were also filled with shadow and painted legibly 
on the gray, moonlit rock. Below them yawned the door — a 
square of complete darkness. A little to the left, over a long 
drift of sand that sloped from the summit of the cliff nearly to 
the water's edge, peered the mitred head of a statue of still 
more colossal proportions. I gazed on this broad, dim, and 
wonderful picture for a moment, so awed by its majesty that I 
did not ask myself where nor what it was. This is some grand 
Egyptian dream, was my first thought, and I closed my eyes 
for a few seconds, to see whether it would vanish. But it 
stood fast and silent as ever, and I knew it to be Abou- 
Simbel. My servants all slept, and the rais and boys noise- 
lessly moored the boat to the shore, and then lay down and 
slept also. Still I lay, and the great statues looked solemnly 
down upon me, and the moon painted their kingly nomens and 
banners with yet darker distinctness on the gray rock. The 
river made no sound below, the long grass stirred not a blade 
at the foot of the crags, and the slopes of sand were white and 
dumb as snow. I lay in too deep a repose for thought, and 
was not then conscious how grateful was such a silence in Na- 
ture, while the moon held up that picture before me. It might 
have been two minutes or twenty, before the current slowly 
swung the stern of the boat around, and the picture as slowly 
shifted from my view, leaving instead the Southern Cross iD 
jjts shrine of stars. 



THE TEMPLES OF ABOO-SIMBEL. 489 

In the morning, I found that we lay at the foot of the 
smaller temple. I quietly waited for my cup of coffee, for the 
morning reality was infinitely less grand than my vision of the 
night. I then climbed to the door and entered. The interior is 
not large nor imposing, after one has seen the temples of Egypt. 
The exterior, however, is on such a colossal scale, that, not- 
withstanding the want of proportion in the different statues, 
the effect is very striking. The largest ones are about thirty- 
five feet high, and not identical, as are those of the great tem- 
ple. One, who stands with one leg advanced, while he holds 
a sword with the handle pressed against his breast, is executed 
with much more spirit than is usually met with in statues of 
this period. The sculptures of the interior are interesting, 
and being of the time of Remeses the Great, whose history 
they illustrate, are executed with much skill and labor. The 
head of the goddess Athor, on the face of the columns in the 
hall, is much less beautiful than that of the same goddess at 
Dendera. It is, in fact, almost broad and distorted enough to 
represent the genius Typhon. 

The front of the great temple is not parallel to that of the 
other, nor does it face the river, which here flows in a north- 
east course. The line of the cliff is broken between the two, 
so that the figures of the great Remeses, seated on each side 
of the door, look to the east, the direction of the line of the 
face being nearly north. Through the gap in front, the sands 
have poured down from the Desert behind, almost wholly fill- 
ing up the space between the two cliffs ; and though since the 
temple was first opened, in 1817, it has been cleared nearly to 
the base more than once, the rapid accumulation of sand has 
again almost closed the entrance. The southern colossus ia 
21* 



490 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

only buried about half way to the knee, but of the two northern 
ones there is little else to be seen except the heads. Obscured 
as is the effect of this grand front, it is still without parallel in 
the world. I had not thought it possible that in statues of 
such enormous magnitude there could be such singular beauty 
of expression. The face of Remeses, the same in each, is un- 
doubtedly a portrait, as it resembles the faces of the statues in 
the interior and those of the King in other places. Besides, 
there is an individuality in some of the features which is too 
marked to represent any general type of the Egyptian head. 
The fullness of the drooping eyelid, which yet does not cover 
the large, oblong Egyptian eye ; the nose, at first slightly in- 
clining to the aquiline, but curving to the round, broad nos- 
trils ; the generous breadth of the calm lips, and the placid, 
serene expression of the face, are worthy of the conqueror of 
Africa and the builder of Karnak and Medeenet Abou. 

The statue next the door, on the southern side, has been 
shivered to the throne on which it is seated, and the fragments 
are not to be seen, except a few which lie upon the knees. 
The ridiculous vanity of tourists has not even spared these 
sublime monuments, and they are covered wherever a hand can 
reach, with the names of noble and ignoble snobs. The enthu- 
siastic antiquaries who cleared away the sands have recorded 
the fact in modest inscriptions, near the door, where they do 
not offend the eye ; and one readily pardons the liberty the 
writers have taken. But there are two G-ermans (whose names 
I will not mention, since it would help give them the very noto- 
riety they covet), who have carved their names in letters a foot 
long, on the thigh of one of the statues, and afterwards filled 
them with black paint. I should like to see them subjected to a 



THE INTERIOR OF THE GREAT TEMPLE. 491 

merciless bastinado, on the same part of their own b6dies. 
Certainly, to have one of the statues seated on their breasts as 
a nightmare, every night of their lives, would not be too much 
punishment for such a desecration. 

The great doorway of the temple is so choked up with sand 
that I was obliged to creep in on my knees. The sun by this 
time had risen exactly to the only point where it can illumine 
the interior, and the rays, taking a more yellow hue from the 
rock and sand on which they fell, shone down the long drift 
between the double row of colossal statues, and lighted up the 
entrance to the second hall of the temple. I sat down in the 
sand, awed and half frightened by the singular appearance of 
the place. The sunshine, falling obliquely on the sands, 
struck a dim reflection against the sculptured roof, and even 
lighted up the farthest recesses of the grand hall sufficiently to 
show its imposing dimensions. Eight square pillars — four on 
either side of the central aisle — seem to uphold the roof, and 
on their inner sides, facing each other, are eight statues of the 
King. The features of all are preserved, and have something 
of the grace and serenity, though not the majesty of the great 
.statues outside. They look into each other's eyes, with an 
eternal question on their fixed countenances, but none can give 
answer. There was something so stern and strange in these 
eight faces, that I felt a shudder of fear creep over me. The 
strong arms are all crossed on their breasts, and the hands 
hold various sacred and regal symbols, conspicuous among 
which is something resembling a flail, which one sees often in 
Egyptian sculpture. I thought of a marvellous story I once 
read, in which a genie, armed with a brazen flail, stands at the 
entrance of an enchanted castle, crushing with the stroke of 



492 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

his terrible weapon all who come to seek the treasure within. 
For a moment the childish faith in the supernatural was as 
strong as ever, and I looked at the gloomy entrance beyond, 
wishing to enter, but fearing the stony flails of the terrible 
Remesi on either hand. The faces were once partially colored, 
and the black eyeball, still remaining on the blank eye of stone, 
gives them an expression of stupor, of death-in-life, which 
accounted to me for the nervous shock I experienced on enter 
ing. 

There is nothing in Egypt which can be likened to the 
great temple of Abou-Simbel. Karnak is grander, but its 
grandeur is human. This belongs rather to the superhuman 
fancies of the East — the halls of the Afrites — or to the realm 
of the dethroned Titans, of early Greek mythology. This im- 
pression is not diminished, on passing the second hall and 
corridor, and entering the adytum, or sacred chamber of the 
temple. There the granite altar yet stands in the centre, 
before the undestroyed figures of the gods, who, seated side by 
side, calmly await the offerings of their worshippers. The 
peculiar individuality of each deity is strikingly shown in these 
large statues, and their attitude is much less constrained than 
in the sitting statues in the tombs of Thebes. These look as 
if they could rise, if they would. The walls are covered with 
sculptures of them and of the contemplar deities, in the grand, 
bold style of the age of Remeses. Some visitors had left a 
supply of dry palm branches near the entrance, and of these I 
made torches, which blazed and crackled fiercely, flaring with a 
rich red light on the sculptured and painted walls. There 
was sufficient to enable me to examine all the smaller chambers, 
of which there are eight or nine, cut laterally into the rock, 



THE RACES OF MEN. 493 

without any attempt at symmetry of form, or regularity of 
arrangement. Several of them have seats running around 
three sides, exactly like the divans in modern Egyptian houses. 
They were probably designed for the apartments of the priests 
or servants connected with the temple. 

The sculptures on the walls of the grand hall are, after 
those of Medeenet Abou, and on the exterior wall of Karnak, 
the most interesting I have seen in Egypt. On the end wall, 
on either side of the entrance, is a colossal bas-relief, repre- 
senting Remeses slaying a group of captive kings, whom he 
holds by the hair of their heads. There are ten or twelve in 
each group, and the features, though they are not colored, 
exhihit the same distinction of race as I had previously remark- 
ed in Belzoni's tomb, at Thebes. There is the Negro, the 
Persian, the Jew, and one other form of countenance which I 
could not make out — all imploring with uplifted hands the 
mercy of the conqueror. On the southern wall, the distinction 
between the Negro and the Egyptian is made still more obvi- 
ous by the coloring of the figures. In fact, I see no reason 
whatever to doubt that the peculiar characteristics of the dif- 
ferent races of men were as strongly marked in the days of 
Remeses as at present. This is an interesting fact in discus- 
sing the question of the unity of origin of the race. Admitting 
the different races of men to have had originally one origin, 
the date of the first appearance of Man on the earth, must have 
been nearer fifty thousand than five thousand years ago. If 
climate, customs, and the like have been the only agents in 
producing that variety of race, which we find so strongly mark- 
ed nearly four thousand years ago, surely those agents must 
have been at work for a vastly longer period than that usually 



494 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

accepted as the age of Man. We are older than we know ; but 
our beginning, like our end, is darkness and mystery. 

The sculptures on the side walls of the temple represent 
the wars of Remeses, who, as at Medeenet Abou, stands in a 
chariot which two horses at full speed whirl into the ranks of 
the enemy. The king discharges his arrows against them, and 
directly in front of him a charioteer, mortally wounded, is 
hurled from his overthrown chariot. The groups are chiselled 
with great spirit and boldness ; the figures of the king and his 
horses are full of life. Towering over all, as well by his supe- 
rior proportions as by the majesty and courage of his attitude, 
Remeses stands erect and motionless amid the shock and jar 
and riot of battle. There is no exultation in his face ; only 
the inflexible calmness of Destiny. 

I spent some time contemplating these grand and remark- 
able memorials of the greatest age of Egypt, and left with my 
feeling for Egyptian art even stronger than before. I watched 
the giant figures of the portico, as the swift current carried 
my boat down stream, reluctant to lose sight of their majestic 
features. But the yellow of the cliff turned to purple, and at 
last other crags passed before it. 



LOSE MY SUNSHINE. 495 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

RETURN TO EGYPT. 

I Lose my Sunshine, and Eegain it — Nubian Scenery — Den - — The Temple of Amada 
—Mysterious Kappings — Familiar Scenes— Halt at Korosko— Escape from Ship- 
wreck — The Temple of Sebooa — Chasing other Boats — Temple of Djerf Hossayn— 
A. Backsheesh Experiment— Kalabshee— Temple of Dab6d — We reach the Egyp- 
tian Frontier. 

The distressing coldness of the temperature the night before 
reaching Wadi Haifa, affected me more painfully than all the 
roastings I had endured in Soudan. My nose after losing six 
coats of skin, became so hard and coppery, that like Anthony 
Van Corlear's, the reflected rays from it might have pierced 
even the tough skin of a crocodile. My frame was so steeped 
in heat, that had our fuel fallen short, I might have " drawn " 
my tea, by hugging the kettle in my arms. I had been so 
bathed and rolled in light, the sun had so constantly, -with 
each succeeding day, showered upon me his burning baptism, 
that I came to regard myself as one of his special representa- 
tives, and to fancy that, wherever I went, there was a sort of 
nimbus or radiation around me. But those few drops of rain, 
among the stony mountains of the Batn El-Hadjar, quenched 
at once the glow of my outer surface, and the cold winds which 



496 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

followed, never ceased blowing till they extinguished even the 
central fires. I was like an incipient comet, snuffed out of 
existence and made satellite to some frozen planet. My frame 
was racked with pains, which turned into misery the refresh- 
ing indolence of the Nile. I had no medicines, but put 
my philosophy into practice : the climate of Nubia, I said, 
has given me this infliction, therefore the country must supply 
the remedy. So I sent the rais ashore in search of it. He 
came back with a cup of oil which a shining daughter of the 
land was about bestowing upon her crispy tresses, and I drank 
it with a heroic faith in the efficacy of my theory. I was not 
disappointed, and on the third day sat once more in the sun, 
in the bow of my boat, trying to regain the effluence I had 
lost. 

The scenery of the Nile below Abou-Simbel is very beauti- 
ful. The mountains recede again from the bank, and show 
themselves occasionally in picturesque peaks. The shores are 
low and rich and the groves of date-trees most luxuriant. The 
weather was delightfully calm and warm, and the Nile, though 
swift, ran smooth and shining as the oil of his own castor 
bean-fields. During the sweet, quiet hour before and after 
sunset, we floated down through the lovely region about Bos- 
tan and Teshka. Three tall peaks of dark-brown rock rose 
inland, beyond the groves of the beautiful Ibreemee palm, 
whose leaves, longer and more slender than those of the Egyp- 
tian date-tree, are gracefully parted at the sides — half of them 
shooting upward in a plumy tuft, while the other half droop 
around the tall shaft of the tree. The boys worked during the 
second night with unabated force. I awoke as the moon was 
rising through black clouds, and found the lofty crags of 



THE TEMPLE OF AMADA. 497 

Ibreem overhanging us. We swept silently under the base 
of the heights, which in the indistinct light, appeared to rise 
four or five hundred feet above us. By sunrise, the date- 
groves of Derr, the capital of the Nuba country, were in sight, 
and we were soon moored beside the beach in front of the 
town. Derr stretches for some distance along the shore, and 
presents an agreeable front to the river. A merchant, from a 
boat near ours, brought me two small loaves of delicious 
Egyptian bread. He had been in Soudan, and knew how such 
bread would relish, after the black manufacture of that 
country. 

An hour afterwards my boat ran to the eastern bank, to 
allow me to visit the little temple of Amada. This temple 
stands on a slight rise in the sands, which surround and en- 
tirely overwhelm it. It consists only of a low portico, sup- 
ported by eight pillars, a narrow corridor and the usual three 
chambers — all of very small dimensions. The sculptures on 
the walls are remarkable for the excellent preservation of their 
colors. The early Christians, who used this temple for their 
worship, broke holes in the roof, which admit sufficient light 
for the examination of the interior. Without knowing any 
thing of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the temple, I should 
judge that it was erected by some private person or persons. 
The figures making the offerings have not the usual symbols 
of royalty, and the objects they present consist principally of 
the fruits of the earth, which are heaped upon a table placed 
before the divinity. The coloring of the fruit is quite rich 
and glowing, and there are other objects which appear to be 
cakes or pastry. While I was examining the central chamber, 
I heard a sound as of some one sharply striking one of the out- 



498 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

side pillars with a stick. It was repeated three times with an 
interval between, and was so clear and distinct that I imagined 
it to be Achmet, following me. I called, but on receiving no 
answer, went out, and was not a little surprised to find no per- 
son there or within sight. The temple stands at a considera- 
ble distance from any dwelling, and there is no place in the 
smooth sands on all sides of it where a man could hide. 
When I- mentioned this circumstance, on returning to the 
boat, Achmet and the rais immediately declared it to be the 
work of a djin, or afrite, who frequently are heard among the 
ruins, and were greatly shocked when I refused to accept this 
explanation. I record the circumstance to show that even iu 
the heart of Nubia there are mysterious rappings. 

Beyond Derr I entered the mountain region of granite,, 
sandstone and porphyry, which extends all the way to As- 
souan. As I approached Korosko, which is only about twelve 
miles farther, the south-wind increased till it became a genuine 
khamseen, almost blotting out the landscape with the clouds 
of sand which it whirled from the recesses of the Biban. We 
were obliged to creep along under the bank till we reached 
Korosko, where we ran up to the same old landing-place at 
which I had stopped in December. The bank was eight feet 
higher than then, the river having fallen that much in the 
mean time. There was the same house, open on the river- 
side, the same old Turk sitting within, the dark sycamores 
shading the bank, the dusty terrace with the familiar palms 
tossing their leaves against the wind, the water-mill, the white 
minaret at the foot of the mountain, and, lastly, the bold, 
peaked ridge of Djebel Korosko behind. There was the very 
spot where my tent had stood, and where I first mounted a 



OLD ACQUAINTANCES AT KOKOSKO. 499 

dromedary for the long inarch through the Nubian Desert. 
There was also the corner by which I turned into the moun- 
tain-pass, and took leave of the Nile. I recognized all these 
points with a grateful feeling that my long wandering in Cen- 
tral Africa was over, without a single untoward incident to 
mar my recollection of it. I had my pipe and carpet brought 
under the shade of the sycamore, while Achmet went up to 
the Governor's house, with the rais and one of the boys. Be- 
fore long, the latter appeared with his shirt full of pigeons (for 
I had not forgotten the delicious roast pigeons we took from 
Korosko into the Desert), then the rais with my sack of char- 
coal, the Governor having only used about one-third of it dur- 
ing my absence, and finally the Governor himself. Moussa 
Effendi shook me cordially by the hand and welcomed me 
many times, thanking God that I had returned in safety. We 
sat on my carpet, talked for an hour about my journey, took 
coffee, and I then left the worthy man and his wretched vil- 
lage, more delighted at having seen them again than I can 
well express. 

The same evening, the wind veered to the north-west, near- 
ly at right-angles to our course, and just at dusk, as the rais 
and Ali were rowing vigorously to keep the boat on the 
western side of the river (the other being full of dangerous 
reefs), the rope which held the long oar in its place broke, and 
' Ali tumbled heels over head into the wooden cooking bowl of 
the rais. The wind carried us rapidly towards the opposite 
shore, and while Ali and Lalee were trying to fix the oar in 
its place, we heard the water roaring over the rocks. " 
Prophet ! " "0 Apostle ! " « Prophet of God, help us ! '' 
were the exclamations of the rais, but little black 'Med Roo- 



500 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

mee, who sat at the helm, like Charlemagne on a similar occa- 
sion, said nothing. He looked keenly through the gloom for 
the reef, and at last discerned it in time for the boat to be 
sculled around with the remaining oar, and brought to land 
just above the dangerous point. A shipwreck in the Nile is a 
more serious matter than one would imagine, who has never 
seen the river during a strong wind. Its waves run as rough- 
ly and roar as loudly as those of a small sea. 

"We reached Sebooa during the night, and I walked up to 
the temple as soon as I rose. Early as it was, several Arabs 
descried me from a distance, and followed. The temple, which 
is small and uninteresting, is almost buried under drifts from 
the Desert, which completely fill its interior chambers. Only 
the portico and court, with three pillars on each side, to which 
colossal caryatides are attached, remain visible. Before the 
pylon there is an avenue of lion-headed sphinxes, six of which, 
and a colossal statue of sandstone, raise their heads above the 
sand. I was followed to the vessel by the men, who impor- 
tuned me for backsheesh. When I demanded what reason 
they had for expecting it, they answered that all strangers 
who go there give it to them. This was reason enough for 
them ; as they knew not why it was given, so they knew not 
why it should be refused. The crowd of travellers during the 
winter had completely spoiled the Barabras. I said to the 
men : " You have done nothing for me ; you are beggars," — 
but instead of feeling the term a reproach, they answered : 
" You are right — we are beggars." With such people one can 
do nothing. 

For the next two days we lagged along, against a head- 
wind. My two boys did the work of two men, and I stimu- 



MY FLAG DJERF HOSSAYST. 501 

lated them with presents of mutton and tobacco. Three Eng- 
lish boats (the last of the season), left Wadi-Halfa three days 
before me, and by inquiring at the village, I found I was fast 
gaining on them. I began to feel some curiosity concerning 
the world's doings during the winter, and as these Englishmen 
were at least three months in advance of the point where I 
left off, they became important objects to me, and the chase of 
them grew exciting. I prepared for my encounter with them 
and other belated travellers on the Nile, by making an Ameri- 
can flag out of some stuff which I had bought for that purpose 
in Dongola. The blue and white were English muslin, and 
the red the woollen fabric of Barbary, but they harmonized 
well, and my flag, though I say it, was one of the handsomest 
on the river. 

The temple of Djerf Hossayn is excavated in the rock, 
near the summit of a hill behind the village. A rough path, 
over heaps of stones, which abound with fragments of pottery, 
denoting the existence of an ancient town, leads up to it. 
When I reached the platform in front of the entrance I had a 
convoy of more than a dozen persons, mostly stout, able-bodied 
men. I determined to try an experiment, and so told them at 
the start to go back, for they would get nothing; but they 
were not to be shaken off. I avoided with the greatest care 
and patience all their endeavors to place me under obligations 
to them ; for these cunning Barabras are most assiduous in 
their efforts to render some slight service. If it is only kicking 
a stone out of your path, it constitutes a claim for backsheesh, 
and they represent their case in such a way that it would be 
the most glaring ingratitude on your part not to give it. 

On entering the temple, the vast square pillars of the hall, 



502 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

with the colossal figures attached to them, produce a striking 
impression. The effect of these pillars, which fill nearly half 
the space of the hall itself, is to increase its apparent dimen- 
sions, so that the temple, at the first glance, seems to be on a 
grander scale than is really the case. I had some curiosity 
regarding this place, from the enthusiastic description of War- 
burton, and the disparaging remarks of Wilkinson. After see- 
ing it, I find them both correct, in a great measure. The co- 
lossal statues of the grand hall are truly, as the latter ob- 
serves, clumsy and badly executed, and the sculptures on the 
walls are unworthy the age of Kemeses ; but it is also true 
that their size, and the bulk of the six pillars, which are lofty 
enough to be symmetrical, would have a fine effect when seen 
at night, by the light of torches, as Warburton saw them. All 
the chambers have suffered from smoke and bats, and the 
bigotry of the old Christians. The walls are so black that it 
is difficult to .trace out the figures upon them. This, however, 
rather heightens the impression of a grand, though uncouth 
and barbarous art, which the temple suggests. I made but a 
brief visit, and marched down the hill with the population of 
Djerf Hossayn in my train. The boat had gone ahead, as the 
only approach to the shore was a mile or two beyond, but they 
insisted on following me. I ordered them to leave, fearing lest 
the very fact of their walking so far in the hot sun would in- 
duce me to break my resolution. It would have been, indeed, 
a satisfaction to give ten piastres and be freed from them, 
and I took no little credit to myself for persisting in refusing 
them. They all dropped off at last, except two, who came 
almost to the spot where the boat was moored, and only turned 
back because I was in advar ce and ordered the rai's to move 



KALABASHEE. 503 

on as soon as I got on board. I should like to know their 
opinion of me. I have no doubt the people considered me the 
most eccentric Frank who ever came among them. 

The next morning we reached Kalabshee, and before sun- 
rise I was standing on the long stone platform before the tem- 
ple. The pylon of hewn sandstone rises grandly above the 
spacious portal, and from the exterior the building has a most 
imposing air. Its interior once, probably, did not diminish 
the impression thus given ; but at present it is such an utter 
mass of ruin that the finest details are entirely lost. The 
temple is so covered with the enormous fragments of the roof 
and walls that it is a work of some difficulty to examine it ; 
but it does not repay any laborious inspection. The outer 
wall which surrounds it has also been hurled down, and the 
whole place is a complete wreck. I know of no temple which 
has been subjected to such violence, unless it be that of Soleb, 
in Dar El-Mahass. 

Below the temple we passed the Bab (Gate) El-Kalabshee, 
where the river is hemmed in between enormous boulders of 
granite and porphyry. The morning was cold and dark, and 
had there been firs instead of palms, I could have believed my- 
self on some flood among the hills of Norway. I urged on the 
boys, as I wished to reach Dabod before dark, and as Ali, who 
was anxious to get back to Egypt, took a hand at the oar oc- 
casionally, our boat touched the high bank below the temple 
just after sunset. There is a little village near the place, and 
the reapers in the ripe wheat-fields behind it were closing their 
day's labor. One old man, who had no doubt been a servant 
in Cairo, greeted me with " buona sera ! " Achmet followed, 
to keep off the candidates for backsheesh, and I stood alone in 



504 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

the portico of the temple, just as the evening star began to 
twinkle in the fading amber and rose. Like Kalabshee, the 
temple is of the times of the Caesars, and unfinished. There 
are three chambers, the interior walls of which are covered 
with sculptures, but little else is represented than the offerings 
to the gods. Indeed, none of the sculptures in the temples of 
the Caesars have the historic interest of those of the Eighteenth 
Egyptian dynasty. The object of the later architects appears 
to have been merely to cover the walls, and consequently we 
find an endless repetition of the same subjects. The novice in 
Egyptian art might at first be deceived by the fresher appear- 
ance of the figures, their profusion and the neatness of their 
chiselling ; but a little experience will satisfy him how truly 
superior were the ancient workmen, both in the design and 
execution of their historic sculptures. In Dabod, I saw the 
last of the Nubian temples, in number nearly equal to those 
of Egypt, and after Thebes, quite equal to them in interest. 
No one who has not been beyond Assouan, can presume to say 
that- he has a thorough idea of Egyptian art. And the Nile, 
the glorious river, is only half known by those who forsake 
him at Philae. 

After dark, we floated past the Shaymt-el-"Wah, a powerful 
eddy or whirlpool in the stream, and in the night came to a 
small village within hearing of the Cataract. Here the rai's 
had his family, and stopped to see them. We lay there quiet- 
ly the rest of the night, but with the first glimpse of light I 
was stirring, and called him to his duty. The dawn was deep- 
ening into a clear golden whiteness in the East, but a few 
large stars were sparkling overhead, as we approached Philae. 
Its long colonnades of light sandstone glimmered in the 



ARRIVAL AT ASSOUAN. 505 

shadows of the palms, between the dark masses of the moun- 
tains on either hand, and its tall pylons rose beyond, distinct 
against the sky. The little hamlets on the shores were still in 
the hush of sleep, and there was no sound to disturb the im- 
pression of that fairy picture. The pillars of the airy chapel 
of Athor are perfect in their lightness and grace, when seen 
thus from a boat coming down the riyer, with the palm-groves 
behind them and the island-quay below. We glided softly 
past that vision of silence and beauty, took the rapid between 
the gates of granite, and swept down to the village at the head 
of the Cataract. The sun had just risen, lighting up the fleet 
of trading boats at anchor, and the crowds of Arabs, Egyptians 
and Barabras on the beach. The two English dahabiyehs I 
had been chasing were rowed out for the descent of the Cata- 
ract, as I jumped ashore and finished my travels in Nubia. 



22 



606 JOUENEY TO CENTBAL AFB1CA. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

VOYAGE DOWN THE NILE. 

Assouan— A Boat for Cairo — English Tourists— A Head-wind— Ophthalmia— Esneh- -A 
Mummied Princess — Ali Effendfs Stories — A Donkey Afrite — Arrival at Luxor — 
The Egyptian Autumn— A Day at Thebes— Songs of the Sailors — Ali leaves me — 
Eide to Dendera — Head-winds again — Visit to Tahtah — The House of Bufaa Bey. 

I beached the Egyptian frontier on the morning of the six- 
teenth of March, having been forty days in making the jour- 
ney from Khartoum. Immediately upon our arrival, I took a 
donkey and rode around the Cataract to Assouan, leaving Ali 
to take care of the baggage-camels. I went directly to the 
beach, where a crowd of vessels were moored, in expectation 
of the caravans of gum from the South. An Egyptian Bey, 
going to Khartoum in the train of Rustum Pasha, had arrived 
the day before in a small dahabiyeh, and the captain thereof 
immediately offered it to me for the return to Cairo. It was 
a neat and beautiful little vessel, with a clean cabin, couch, 
divan, and shady portico on deck. He asked twelve hundred 
piastres ; I offered him nine hundred ; we agreed on a thou- 
sand, and when my camels arrived there was a new refuge pre- 
pared for my household gods. I set Achmet to work at get- 



ENGLISH TOURISTS. 50*7 

ting the necessary supplies, sent the rais to bake bread for the 
voyage, and then went to see the jolly, flat-nosed Governor. 
He received me very cordially, and had a great deal to say of 
the unparalleled herd of travellers on the Nile during the 
winter. Ninety-six vessels and eleven steamboats had reached 
the harbor of Assouan, and of these the greater number were 
Americans. " Mashallah ! your countrymen must be very 
rich," said the Governor. 

When I left the divan, the firing of guns announced the 
safe arrival of the English boats below the Cataract. Yery 
soon I saw two burnt-faced, tarbooshed individuals, with eye- 
glasses in their eyes, strolling up the beach. For once I 
threw off the reserve which a traveller usually feels towards 
every one speaking his own language, and accosted them. 
They met my advances half-way, and before long my brain 
was in a ferment of French and English politics. Europe was 
still quiet then, but how unlike the quiet of the Orient ! The 
Englishmen had plenty of news for me, but knew nothing of 
the news I most wanted-^those of my own country. Had our 
positions been reversed, the result would have been different. 
They left at sunset for the return to Thebes, but I was detain- 
ed until noon the next day, when I set off in company with 
the boat of Signor Drovetti, of Alexandria, who left Khar- 
toum a few days after me. I had six men, but only two of 
them were good oarsmen. 

In the morning, when I awoke, the broken pylon of Ombos 
tottered directly over the boat. I rushed on deck in time to 
catch another sight of the beautiful double portico, looking 
down from the drifted sands. The wind blew very strongly 
from the north, but in the afternoon we succeeded in reaching 



508 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Djebel Silsileh, where the English boats were moored. We 
exchanged pistol salutes, and I ran up to the bank to visit 
some curious sculptured tablets and grottoes, which we did not 
see on the upward voyage. During the night the wind 
increased to such an extent that all the boats were obliged to 
lay to The morning found our four dahabiyehs floating slow- 
ly down in company, crossing from side to side transversely, in 
order to make a little headway. After three or four hours, 
however, the wind grew so strong that they were driven up 
stream, and all ran to the lee of a high bank for shelter. 
There we lay nearly all day. The Englishmen went ashore 
and shot quails, but I lounged on my divan, unable to do any 
thing, for the change from the dry, hot desert air, to the damp 
Nile blasts, brought on an inflammation of the eyes, resembling 
ophthalmia. I was unable to read or write, and had no reme- 
dies except water, which I tried both warm and cold, with 
very little effect. 

Towards evening the wind fell ; after dark we passed the 
pylon of Edfoo, and at noon the next day reached Esneh. I 
went at once to the temple, so beautiful in my memory, yet 
still more beautiful when I saw it again. The boys who 
admitted me, lifted the lids of the large coffin and showed the 
royal mummies, which are there crumbling to pieces from the 
neglect of the. Egyptian authorities, who dug them up at 
G-oorneh. The coffins were of thick plank and still sound, the 
wood having become exceedingly dry and light. The mum- 
mies were all more or less mutilated, but the heads of some 
were well preserved. In form, they differ considerably from 
the Arab head of the present day, showing a better balance of 
the intellectual and moral faculties. On one of them the hair 



ALI EFEENDl's STORIES. 509 

was still fresh and uncorrupted. It was of a fine, silky tex- 
ture and a bright auburn color. The individual was a woman, 
with a very symmetrical head, and small, regular features. 
She may have been a beauty once, but nothiDg could be more 
hideous. I pulled off a small lock of hair, and took it with 
me as a curious relic. Esneh appeared much more beautiful 
to me than on my upward journey; possibly, by contrast with 
the mud-built houses of Soudan. I went to a coffee-shop and 
smoked a slieesheh, while the muezzin called down from the 
mosque in front : " God is great 5 there is no God but God ; 
Mohammed is the Prophet of God." 

Ali Effendi, the agent of the Moodir, or Governor, came 
to see me and afterwards went on board my vessel. As the 
wind was blowing so furiously that we could not leave, I invit- 
ed him to dinner, and in the meantime we had a long talk on 
afrites and other evil spirits. I learned many curious things 
concerning Arabic faith in such matters. The belief in spirits 
is universal, although an intelligent Arab will not readily con- 
fess the fact to a Frank, unless betrayed into it by a simulated 
belief on the part of the latter. Ali Effendi informed me that 
the spirit of a man who is killed by violence, haunts the spot 
where his body is buried, until the number of years has elapsed, 
which he would otherwise have lived. He stated, with the 
greatest earnestness, that formerly, in passing at night over 
the plain between Embabeh and the Pyramids, where Napo- 
leon defeated the Mamelukes, he had frequently heard a con- 
fusion of noises, — cries of pain, and agony, and wrath — but 
that now there were but few sounds to be heard, as the time of 
service of the ghosts had for the most part expired. 

One of his personal experiences with an afrite amused ru* 



510 JOURNET TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

exceedingly. He was walking one night on the road from 
Cairo to Shoobra, when he suddenly saw a donkey before him. 
As he was somewhat fatigued, and the donkey did not appear 
to have an owner, he mounted, and was riding along very 
pleasantly, when he was startled by the fact that the animal 
was gradually increasing in size. In a few minutes it became 
nearly as large as a camel ; and he thereby knew that it was 
no donkey, but an afrite. At first he was in such terror that 
the hairs of his beard stood straight out from his face, but 
suddenly remembering that an afrite may be brought to reveal 
his true nature by wounding him with a sharp instrument, he 
cautiously drew his dagger and was about to plunge it into the 
creature's back. The donkey-fiend, however, kept a sharp 
watch iipon him with one of his eyes, which was turned back- 
wards, and no sooner saw the dagger than he contracted to 
his original shape, shook off his rider and whisked away with a 
yell of infernal laughter, and the jeering exclamation : " Ha ! 
ha ! you want to ride, do you ? " 

We had scarcely left Esneh before a fresh gale arose, and 
kept us tossing about in the same spot all night. These 
blasts on the Nile cause a rise of waves which so shake the 
vessel that one sometimes feels a premonition of sea-sickness. 
They whistle drearily through the ropes, like a gale on the 
open sea. The air at these times is filled with a gray haze, 
and the mountain chains on either hand have a dim, watery 
loom, like that of mountains along the sea-coast. For half a 
day I lay in sight of Esneh, but during the following night, as 
there was no wind, I could not sleep for the songs of the sail- 
ors. The sunrise touched the colonnade of Luxor. I slept 
beyond my usual time, and on going out of the cabin what 



THEBES REVISITED. 511 

siiould I see but my former guide, Hassan, leading down the 
beach the same little brown mare on which I had raced with 
him around Karnak. We mounted and rode again down the 
now familiar road, but the harvests whose planting I had wit- 
nessed in December were standing ripe or already gathered in. 
It was autumn in Egypt. The broad rings of clay were 
beaten for threshing floors, and camels, laden with stacks of 
wheat-sheaves paced slowly towards them over the stubble 
fields. Herds of donkeys were to be seen constantly, carrying 
heavy sacks of wheat to the magazines, and the capacious 
freight-boats were gathering at the towns along the Nile to 
carry off the winter's produce. 

It was a bright, warm and quiet day that I spent at 
Thebes. The great plain, girdled by its three mountain- 
chains, lay in a sublime repose. There was no traveller there, 
and, as the people were expecting none, they had already given 
up the ruins to their summer silence and loneliness. I had no 
company, on either side of the river, but my former guides, 
who had now become as old friends. We rode to Karnak, to 
Medeenet Abou, to the Memnonium, and the Colossi of the 
Plain. The ruins had now not only a memory for me, but a 
language. They no longer crushed me with their cold, stern, 
incomprehensible grandeur. I was calm as the Sphinx, whose 
lips no longer closed on a mystery. I had gotten over the 
awe of a neophyte, and, though so little had been revealed to 
me, walked among the temples with the feelings of a master. 
Let no one condemn this expression as presumptuous, for 
nothing is so simple as Art, when once we have the clue to her 
infinite meanings. 

White among the many white days of my travel, that day 



512 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

at Thebes is registered ; and if I left with pain, and the vast 
regret we feel on turning away from such spots, at least I took 
with me the joy that Thebes, the mighty and the eternal, was 
greater to me in its living reality than it had ever been in all 
the shadow-pictures my anticipation had drawn. Nor did the 
faultless pillars of the Memnonium, nor the obelisks of Kar- 
nak, take away my delight in the humbler objects which kept a 
recognition for me. The horses, whose desert blood sent its 
contagion into mine ; the lame water-boy, always at my elbow 
with his earthen bottle ; the grave guides, who considered my 
smattering of Arabic as something miraculous, and thence 
dubbed me " Taylor Effendi ; " the half-naked Fellahs in the 
harvest-fields, who remembered some idle joke of mine, — all 
these combined to touch the great landscape with a home-like 
influence, and to make it seem, in some wise, like an old rest- 
ing-place of my heart. Mustapha Achmet Aga, the English 
agent at Luxor, had a great deal to tell me of the squabbles of 
travellers during the winter : how the beach was lined with 
foreign boats and the temples crowded day after day with 
scores of visitors ; how these quarrelled with their dragomen 
and those with their boatmen, and the latter with each other 
till I thanked Heaven for having kept me away from Thebes 
at such a riotous period. 

Towards evening there was a complete calm, and every thing 
was so favorable for our downward voyage that I declined 
Mustapha's invitation to dine with him the next day, and set 
off for Kenneh. The sailors rowed lustily, my servant Ali 
taking the leading oar. Ali was beside himself with joy, at 
the prospect of reaching his home and astonishing his family 
with his marvellous adventures in Soudan. He led the chorus 



SONGS OF THE SAILORS. 513 

with a voice so strong and cheery that it rang from shore to 
shore. As I was unable to write or read, I sat on deck, with 
the hoy Hossayn at my elbow to replenish the pipe as occasion 
required, and listened to the songs of the sailors. Their 
repertory was so large that I was unable to exhaust it during 
-the voyage. One of their favorite songs was in irregular 
trochaic lines, consisting of alternate questions and answers, 
such as " ed-dookan el-liboodeh fayn ? '" (where's the shop of 
the cotton caps ?) sung by the leader, to which the chorus re- 
sponded : " Baliari Luxor beshwoytayn." (A little to the 
northward of Luxor). Another favorite chorus was : Imlal- 
imlal-imlalee ! " (Fill, fill, fill to me !) Many of the songs 
were of too broad a character to be translated, but there were 
two of a more refined nature, and these, from the mingled 
passion, tenderness and melancholy of the airs to which they 
were sung, became great favorites of mine.* 

* I give the following translations of these two songs, as nearly liter- 
al as possible : 

I. 

Look at me with your eyes, gazelle, gazelle I The blossom ofj 
your cheeks is dear to me ; your breasts burst the silk of your vest ; I 
cannot loose the shawl about yoxir waist ; it sinks into your soft waist. 
Who possesses you is blessed by heaven. Look at me with your eyes, 
O gazelle, gazelle ! Your forehead is like the moon ; your face is 
fairer than all the flowers of the garden ; your bed is of diamonds ; he 
is richer than a King who can sleep thereon. Look at me with your 
eyes, gazelle, gazelle ! 

II. 
night, night — darling, I lie on the sands. I languish for the 

light of your face ; if you do not have pity on me, I shall die. 
night, night — darling, I lie on the sands. I have changed color, 
22* 



514 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Before sunrise we reacted Kenneh. Here I was obliged 
to stop a day to let the men bake tbeir bread, and I employed 
the time in taking a Turkish bath and revisiting the temple of 
Dendera. My servant Ali left me, as his family resided in 
the place. I gave him a good present, in consideration of his 
service during the toilsome journey we had just closed. He 
kissed my hand very gratefully, and I felt some regret at 
parting with, as I believed, an honest servant, and a worthy, 
though wild young fellow. What was my mortification on 
discovering the next day that he had stolen from me the beau- 
tiful stick, which had been given me in Khartoum by the Sul- 
tana Nasra. The actual worth of the stick was trifling, but the 
action betrayed an ingratitude which I had not expected, even 
in an Arab. I had a charming ride to Dendera, over the fra- 
grant grassy plain, rippled by the warm west wind. I was ac- 
companied only by the Fellah who owned my donkey- — an amia- 
ble fellow, who told me many stories about the robbers who used 
formerly to come in from the Desert and plunder the country. 
"We passed a fine field of wheat, growing on land which had 
been uncultivated for twenty years. My attendant said that 
this was the work of a certain Effendi, who, having seen the 
neglected field, said that it was wrong to let God's good ground 
lie idle, and so planted it. " But he was truly a good man," 
he added; "and that is the reason why the crop is so good. 
If he had been a bad man, the wheat would not have grown so 
finely as you see it." 

from my longing and my sorrow ; you only can restore me, O my 
darling. 
night, night — darling, I lie on the sands. O darling, take me in: 
give me a place by your aide, or I must go back wretched to my 
own country. 



DESCENDING THE NILE. 515 

For three days after leaving Kenneh, a furious head-wind 
did its best to beat me back, and in that time we only made 
sixty miles. I sighed when I thought of the heaps of letters 
awaiting me in Cairo, and Achmet could not sleep, from the 
desire of seeing his family once more. He considered himself 
as one risen from the dead. He had heard in Luxor that his 
wife was alarmed at his long absence, and that his little son 
went daily to Boulak to make inquiries among the returning 
boats. Besides, my eyes were no better. I could not go 
ashore, as we kept the middle of the stream, and my only 
employment was to lounge on the outside divan and gossip 
with the rais. One evening, when the sky was overcast, and 
the wind whirled through the palm-trees, we saw a boy on the 
bank crying for his brother, who had started to cross the river 
but was no longer to be seen. Presently an old man came out 
to look for him, in a hollow palm-log, which rolled on the 
rough waves. We feared the boy had been drowned, but not 
long afterwards came upon him, drifting at the mercy of the 
current, having broken his oar. By the old man's assistance 
he got back to the shore in safety. 

On the fourth day the wind ceased. The Lotus floated 
down the stream as lightly as the snowy blossom whose name 
I gave her. ' "We passed Grirgeh, Ekhmin ; and at noon we 
brushed the foot of Djebel Shekh Hereedee and reached the 
landing-place of Tahtah. I had a letter from Kufaa Bey in 
Khartoum to his family in the latter town, and accordingly 
walked thither through fields of superb wheat, heavy with 
ripening ears. Tahtah is a beautiful old town ■ the houses are 
of burnt brick ; the wood-work shows the same fanciful Sara- 
cenic patterns as in Cairo, and the bazaar is as quiet, dim and 



516 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

Spicy as an Oriental dream. I found the Bey's house, and 
delivered my letter through a slave. The wife, or wives, who 
remained in the hareem, invisible, entertained me with coffee 
and pipes, in the same manner, while a servant went to bring 
the Bey's son from school. Two Copts, who had assisted me in 
finding the house, sat in the court-yard, and entertained them- 
selves with speculations concerning my journey, not supposing 
that I understood them. " Grirgos," said one to the other, 
" the Frank must have a great deal of money to spend." 
" You may well say that ; " his friend replied, "this journey 
to Soudan must have cost him at least three hundred purses." 
In a short time the Bey's son came, accompanied by the 
schoolmaster. He was a weak, languid boy of eight or nine 
years old, and our interview was not very interesting. I there- 
fore sent the slave to bring donkeys, and we rode back to the 
boat. 



SJOUT IN HARVEST-TIME. 51 7 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE RETURN TO CAIRO CONCLUSION. 

.Siout In Harvest-time — A kind Englishwoman — A Slight Experience of Hasheesh— 
The Calm— Rapid Progress down the Nile — The Last Day of the Voyage— Arrival 
at Cairo — Tourists preparing for the Desert— Parting with Achmet — Conclusion. 

We reached Siout on the morning of the twenty-eighth of 
March, twelve days after leaving Assouan. I had seen the 
town, during the Spring of an Egyptian November, glittering 
over seas of lusty clover and young wheat, and thought it never 
could look so lovely again ; but as I rode up the long dyke, 
overlooking the golden waves of harvest, and breathing the 
balm wafted from lemon groves spangled all over with their 
milky bloom, I knew not which picture to place in my mind's 
gallery. I remained half a day ia the place, partly for old ac- 
quaintance sake, and partly to enjoy the bath, the cleanest and 
most luxurious in Egypt. I sought for some relief to my 
eyes, and as they continued to pain me considerably, I went 
on board an English boat which had arrived before me, in the 
hope of finding some medicine adapted to my case. The trav- 
ellers were a most innocent-faced Englishman and his wife — a 
beautiful, home-like little creature, with as kind a heart as 



518 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ever beat. They had no medicine, but somebody had recom- 
mended a decoction of parsley, and the amiable woman spoiled 
their soup to make me some, and I half suspect threw away 
her Eau de Cologne to get a bottle to put it in. I am sure I 
bathed my eyes duly, with a strong faith in its efficacy, and 
fancied that they were actually improving, but on the second 
day the mixture turned sour and I was thrown back on my 
hot water and cold water. 

While in Egypt, I had frequently heard mention of the 
curious effects produced by hasheesh, a preparation made from 
the cannabis indica. On reaching Siout, I took occasion to 
buy some, for the purpose of testing it. It was a sort of paste, 
made of the leaves of the plant, mixed with sugar and spices. 
The taste is aromatic and slightly pungent, but by no means 
disagreeable. About sunset, I took what Achmet considered 
to be a large dose, and waited half an hour without feeling the 
slightest. effect. I then repeated it, and drank a cup of hot tea 
immediately afterwards. In about ten minutes, I became con- 
scious of the gentlest and balmiest feeling of rest stealing over 
me. The couch on which I sat grew soft and yielding as air ; 
my flesh was purged from all gross quality, and became a 
gossamer filagree of exquisite nerves, every one tingling with a 
sensation which was too dim and soft to be pleasure, but which 
resembled nothing else so nearly. No sum could have tempt- 
ed me to move a finger. The slightest shock seemed enough 
to crush a structure so frail and delicate as I had become. I 
felt like one of those wonderful sprays of brittle spar which 
hang for ages in the unstirred air of a cavern, but are shivered 
to pieces by the breath of the first explorer. 

As this sensation, which lasted but a short time, was 



A SLIGHT EXPERIENCE OF HASHEESH. 519 

gradually fading away, I found myself infected with a ten- 
dency to view the most common objects in a ridiculous light. 
Achmet was sitting on one of the provision chests, as was his 
custom of an evening. I thought : was there ever any thing 
so absurd as to see him sitting on that chest ? and laughed im- 
moderately at the idea. The turban worn by the captain next 
put on such a quizzical appearance that I chuckled over it for 
some time. Of all turbans in the world it was the most ludi- 
crous. Various other things affected me in like manner, and 
at last it seemed to me that my eyes were increasing in 
breadth. " Achmet," I called out, " how is this ? my eyes are 
precisely like two onions." This was my crowning piece of 
absurdity. I laughed so loud and long at the singular com- 
parison I had made, that when I ceased from sheer weariness 
the effect was over. But on the following morning my eyes 
were much better, and I was able to write, for the first time in 
a week. 

The calm we had prayed for was given to us. The Lotus 
floated, sailed and was rowed down the Nile at the rate of 
seventy miles a day, all hands singing in chorus day and night, 
while the rai's and his nephew Hossayn beat the tarabooka or 
played the reedy zumarra. It was a triumphal march ; for 
my six men outrowed the ten men of the Englishman. Some- 
times the latter came running behind us till they were within 
hail, whereupon my men would stand up in their places, and 
thundering out their contemptuous chorus of " he toon, torn, 
hoosoarra ! " strike the water so furiously with their long 
oars, that their rivals soon slunk out of hearing. So we went 
down, all excitement, passing in one day a space, which it had 
taken us four days to make, on our ascent. One day at Man- 



520 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

1 aloot ; the next at Minyeh ; the next at Benisooef ; the next 
in sight of the Pyramids ; and so it came to pass that in spite 
of all my delays before reaching Siout, on the sixteenth day 
after leaving Assouan, I saw the gray piles of Dashoor and 
Sakkara pass behind me and grow dim under the Libyan 
Hills. 

And now dawns the morning of the first of April, 1852 — a 
day which will be ever memorable to Achmet and myself, as 
that of our return to Cairo. When the first cock crowed in 
some village on shore, we all arose and put the Lotus in mo- 
tion. Over the golden wheat-fields of the western bank the 
pyramids of Dashoor stand clear and purple in the distance. 
It is a superb morning ; calm, bright, mild, and vocal with the 
songs of a thousand birds among the palms. Ten o'clock 
comes, and Achmet, who has been standing on the cabin-roof, 
cries : "0 my master ! God be praised ! there are the mina- 
rets of Sultan Hassan ! " At noon there is a strong head- 
wind, but the men dare not stop. "We rejoice over every mile 
they make. The minaret of old Cairo is in sight, and I give 
the boat until three o'clock to reach the place. If it fails, I 
shall land and walk. The wind slackens a little and we work 
down towards the island of Roda, Grizeh on our left. At last 
we enter the narrow channel between the island and Old Cairo ; 
it is not yet three o'clock. I have my pistols loaded with a 
double charge of powder. There are donkeys and donkey-boys 
on the shore, but Arabian chargers with Persian grooms were 
not a more welcome sight. We call them, and a horde comes 
rushing down to the water. I fire my pistols against the bank 
of Eoda, stunning the gardeners and frightening the donkey- 
boys. Mounted at last, leaving Achmet to go on with the 



ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. 521 

boat to Boulak, I dash at full speed down the long street lead- 
ing into the heart of Cairo. No heed now of a broken neck : 
away we go, upsetting Turks, astonishing Copts and making 
Christians indignant, till I pull up in the shady alley before 
the British consulate. The door is not closed, and I go up 
stairs with three leaps and ask for letters. None ; but a 
quantity of papers which the shirt of my donkey-boy is scarce- 
ly capacious enough to hold. And now at full speed to my 
banker's. "Are there any letters for me?" "Letters? — a 
drawer full ! " and he reaches me the missives, more precious 
than gold. "Was not that a sweet repayment for my five 
months in the heat and silence and mystery of mid-Africa, 
when I sat by my window, opening on the great square of Cai- 
ro, fanned by cool airs from the flowering lemon groves, with 
the words of home in my ears, and my heart beating a fervent 
response to the sunset call from the minarets : " God is great ! 
G-od is merciful ! " 



I stayed eight days in Cairo, to allow my eyes time to 
heal. The season of winter travel was over, and the few 
tourists who still lingered, were about starting for Palestine, 
by way of Gaza. People were talking of the intense heat, and 
dreading the advent of the Jchamseen, or south-wind, so called 
because it blows fifty days. I found the temperature rather 
cool than warm, and the Jdiamseen, which blew occasionally, 
filling the city with dust, was mild as a zephyr, compared to 
the furnace-like blasts of the African Desert. Gentlemen pre- 
pared themselves for the journey across the Desert, by pur- 
chasing broad-brimmed hats, green veils, double-lined umbrel- 



522 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA. 

las, and blue spectacles. These may be all very good, but I 
liave never seen the sun nor felt the heat which could induce 
me to adopt them. I would not exchange my recollections of 
the fierce red Desert, blazing all over with intensest light, for 
any amount of green, gauzy sky and blue sand. And as for 
an umbrella, the Desert with a continual shade around you, is 
no desert at all. You must let the Sun lay his sceptre on 
your head, if you want to know his power. 

I left Cairo with regret, as I left Thebes and the White 
Nile, and every other place which gives one all that he came 
to seek. Moreover, I left behind me my faithful dragoman, 
Achmet. He had found a new son in his home, but also an 
invalid wife, who demanded his care, and so he was obliged to 
give up the journey with me through Syria. He had quite en- 
deared himself to me by his constant devotion, his activity, 
honesty and intelligence, and I had always treated him rather 
as a friend than servant. I believe the man really loved me, 
for he turned pale under all the darkness of his skin, when we 
parted at Boulak. 

I took the steamer for Alexandria, and two or three days 
afterwards sailed for fresh adventures in another Continent. 
If the reader, who has been my companion during the journey 
which is now closed, should experience no more fatigue than I 
did, we may hereafter share also in those adventures. 



FINIS. 



./&i 



